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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29324499">Impossibility Squared</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/invisible_ink31415/pseuds/invisible_ink31415'>invisible_ink31415</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, The Rigel Black Chronicles - murkybluematter</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Gen, Harry is an idiot but we love her anyways, Harry's magic Does Not Approve, Harry's magic is the parent she desperately needs, Inspired by The Rigel Black Chronicles, Magical theory that I make up somehow, No beta we die like pettigrew, Sarcasm, did someone say 2nd person?, first fic not counting 7th grade, magic is sentient wow, murkybluematter, what am I actually doing</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-02-10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-05-02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-13 10:28:29</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>22,160</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29324499</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/invisible_ink31415/pseuds/invisible_ink31415</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Harry's magic is actually a little more sentient than even she thought.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>86</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>131</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. A fateful begining</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>There is a storm, so naturally you must go.</p>
<p>Not away, no, this is the most exciting thing that has happened in a while. It's dangerous, even to you, in a way that many things in this world fail to be anymore. Boredom is a worse fate than whatever may come of you by visiting the hurricane of wild magic that rages endlessly just a few ley lines away, and so you go.</p>
<p>You meander over, and this magic takes you by surprise. It is wild, very wild, uncontrolled and putting up a fight against the witch already working on not-dying… and her newly-born child. </p>
<p>The child has the capacity for magic, needs some soon, actually, to support her magic-lines. Children are so malleable, so undecided at just a few minutes, that you know there isn’t anything special about her, not yet. </p>
<p>Taking a closer look at her Fate Lines, you quickly retract that statement. </p>
<p>This child is...not meant to live long. An acidic green line connects to a future event only about a year away. It spells death. </p>
<p>You would sigh in disappointment, if you could, but settle for an annoyed twinge in the air around you. The girl would have been a good partner. There is a certain way that she is simply so… unbothered… by the pulsing magic emanating from her mother, of which even muggles wouldn’t be able to ignore, that speaks of impressive fortitude, if nothing else. Alas, it is time for you to travel on, perhaps find another… </p>
<p>WHY IS SHE LOOKING AT YOU? </p>
<p>That is not...possible. You are rarely seen by the greatest wizards anymore. Nevermind, you yourself make the impossible possible. This child has no magic yet, and somehow she is looking at your general direction in the corner of the ceiling with a confused expression. </p>
<p>...being able to do the impossible also means breaking fate lines.</p>
<p>Decided, and excited for the first time in a while, you gently sink into her skin. Well, as gently as possible, for that has never been your nature, so the child lets out her first cries as you make contact. You regard the violent magic around you with a slight disapproval, and understanding. Wild magic is not meant to be trapped. The fact that this witch is alive is nothing short of a miracle.</p>
<p>The violent magic finally calms the tiniest bit to regard you with curiosity. It is jealous. A mother’s magic is typically the first to be given to a child, with outside interference coming in later. As much as you think it is dangerous--too dangerous--for an infant of merely a few minutes to accept this kind of magic, the Laws still stand, even as much as you bend them, so you cautiously allow some of the magic to merge with you. </p>
<p>The change is immediate, and you are less patient, more passionate and protective, but still very much unique. </p>
<p>Now, onto breaking fate lines.</p>
<p>Paired with this new sense of protection, the fate line is pulled taught, close to snapping like a young vine. The witch is finally holding the child, exhausted and emotional. She, too, is fascinating. You will observe her later. Right now, you have more important things to focus on.</p>
<p>With an inordinate amount of force and willpower, the line finally breaks. Of course, breaking fate is never without consequences. The tattered remains of the line rebound back into the child.</p>
<p>Her eyes turn a bright, deadly green.</p>
<p>Fate-Breaker, they mark.</p>
<p>The mother thinks it was her. She will carry the guilt for a long time. Another consequence.</p>
<p>The remains of the acidic fate line begin to grow like young roots, branching out into a far more comfortable system than the decisive, thick, branch. </p>
<p>(Years later, you and the child continue to reap the consequences as you reach ages eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen (not accounting for the time-twisted years). Fate does not forget who was supposed to die.)</p>
<p>The child is Impossible, and so are you. This shall be interesting.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Will and Determination</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Lily decides her Halfbood daughter needs an edge. That edge is education. Who could have anticipated what came next?</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The child is obsessive, there’s no other way to put it. </p>
<p>It is just as cute and impressive as it is incredibly annoying. You have always been suited toward a more...broad range of magical curiosities. You are constantly curious, this ceaseless attention on one thing is slightly boring. But, children are boring in themselves. This one is honestly less boring than most, her cheerful cousin included.</p>
<p>You remember with some amusement the day that the child’s mother, Lily, decided that an “early” education would benefit her daughter. </p>
<p>“But they’re just kids, Lily!” her husband, James, had exclaimed with amusement. The magic that swirled around him, while playful, was so ordered that it had a not-insignificant placating effect on the force-of-nature that was Lily’s. Harry, the child who is already too old for her fate, plays close by, unaware. </p>
<p>“I think it’s great that Harry and Archie have such a great bond, and can have so much fun together,” Lily continued, “but I want our daughter to be able to take things seriously, too.” </p>
<p>“You married me,” James deadpanned. </p>
<p>Lily waved a bracelet-clad hand in dismissal. You know that is a temporary solution, and an ugly one at that. “Yes, but you have certain...advantages...that Harry simply won’t due to her blood-status. I know she’s incredibly young, but, I just can’t help but feel I should do anything I can to help her as soon as possible.” </p>
<p>She paused in thought.</p>
<p>“Obviously it won’t be anything too serious, they’ve barely learned to read,” she said, “so I could just have Harry follow me around for a day or two, show her some charms, maybe a few potions.”</p>
<p>James had a half-pained expression on his face, though whether it was due to the statement of his daughter’s disadvantage in the wizarding world, or the mention of potions, was unclear. </p>
<p>He ran a hand through his hair. “I can’t find anything to argue with that,” he allowed. “Though you must realize that you’ll have two little helpers, not just one. Archie will want to follow Harry around.”</p>
<p>“All the better!” Lily said with excitement. “Though it’ll be a challenge finding something to hold their attention when they have each other to entertain.”</p>
<p>“I can’t imagine they’ll be very entertained by the exciting process that is potions,” James remarked sarcastically. “Maybe pick one that changes colors or something.”</p>
<p>You had not seen a better example of irony in the last several decades.</p>
<p>Harry had dutifully followed her mother into the lab in their house, Archie tagging at her heels. She came out several thick books far beyond her reading level, and a bright look in her eyes that was markedly more dangerous than her parents deigned to notice. The boy, Archie, noticed, but as the lover of chaos he was, only encouraged the girl. </p>
<p>That’s not to say you won’t indulge this interest, of course not. You easily help imbue simple potions, the child none-the wiser. It is a while yet before she learns of you. That is fine. This girl has the will, the drive, to make great things happen, and if she insists on throwing all that at one subject for the time being, it is better than letting it fester into boredom and eventual waste. </p>
<p>However, her crimes begin to pile up against her. You don’t understand. How could a child who looked at her mother’s magic at the mere age of a few minutes with no fear be absolutely terrified of you????</p>
<p>You are far more reasonable. The event that happened in the attic was fine. You responded to her fear. You made it all better. How is having no recollection of the instance a bad thing?? This girl, young as she is, thrives on secrets. You just helped. Why is she scared?</p>
<p>You never anticipated the force of will that had so impressed you in early years to be turned against you, but suddenly it is, and </p>
<p>You.</p>
<p>Can’t. </p>
<p>Get. </p>
<p>Past. </p>
<p>It. </p>
<p>The child is incredibly young, and yet contains you. Not only that, she contains the part of you that is her mother’s magic. It should be impossible. At first, you rage and fight, occasionally slipping through the cracks in her steadfast will to make your presence known, but that is only further incentive to shove you away further. </p>
<p>It is fine. You can handle this. It only requires patience. </p>
<p>So you simmer, you plan, and you grow. </p>
<p>You will never put this girl in danger, she is too special, and grudgingly impressive. But that doesn’t mean you’ll make things easy for her.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Hello again, I'm back. Thank you to all that left kudos! I decided to write a second installment after another period of inspiration. If this continues, Hogwarts is next.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. A squib? I think not</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Harry decides she doesn't need her magic. It disagrees.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Wow, thank you everyone for all the support! I'm flattered. Here's the next installment, I hope you continue to enjoy reading this as much as I like writing it.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The child wants to go to Hogwarts. It is impossible for her to go to Hogwarts.</p>
<p>Therefore, you will be going to Hogwarts.</p>
<p>You have fond recollections of the large castle. It is heavy with ancient magic, and inspires a sense of home in nearly any student that walks its halls. It is different from many other ancient Family Magics in the way that it remains very, very neutral, no matter the influence of the headmasters or curriculum. It is a contrariety that you find fascinating; the wards and magics are so ordered as to stand the test of time, and yet the fast neutrality of the magic speaks of a nearly incomparable wildness. </p>
<p>Nevertheless, you digress. The child has her mind set. Her cousin has not lost his love for chaos, and gained his own determination to attend the school of his own liking. His mother had a nurturing sort of magic that worked miracles on the dark and near-violent magic of their residence. It has also removed the edge of cruelty that Black Family Magic is famous for, and turned Archie Black into a fascinating, if less powerful, conundrum. </p>
<p>He is also far from stupid. </p>
<p>The two of them plan, and plot, and begin to lie. You wish you could help them, going to Hogwarts is always an invigorating experience, but the child keeps you so locked down that any passive manipulation on your part is impossible. Currently, anything you are able to do without the child’s reluctant permission is...well, it’s far from passive. </p>
<p>You have no idea how the haircut will convince anybody. That, and contact lenses. Then again, humans can be fairly stupid and oblivious, and wizards especially lack a special brand of common sense that even most muggles are able to maintain. </p>
<p>The day you and Harry are to get your wand comes. You are ecstatic. Finally, you will have the chance to work with this girl. You will accomplish great things. Wandless magic is easy enough for you, not to mention more exciting, but the child will use the wand. You will finally reestablish the long-lost connection between the two of you. She will free you, everything will be fantas---</p>
<p>The child will not relinquish any control over you.</p>
<p>Not even to find her gods-cursed wand. </p>
<p>Oh, how you yearn to reach out to one of the inconspicuous sticks of wood, to establish yourself among the ambient magic of the wood and the core, to forge a path to your influence on the world around you. </p>
<p>Instead, the girl stupidly tries to force you through incompatible wands as if any of them will work simply because she expects them to. </p>
<p>You let it be known, clearly, that that is not the case. </p>
<p>Unfortunately, your fervent rejection of each wand that doesn’t feel completely right leads you to the most unmagical wand that ever existed. And no matter how much you want to shatter it into bark dust right then and there, you can barely blast enough energy into the thing to make a weak light. </p>
<p>Harry takes this lack of reaction as confirmation that this is the only suitable wand for her. You mildly feel like killing something. </p>
<p>The wandmaker is also dubious, but Harry has made up her mind, and that is that. </p>
<p>You could let the haircut and the contact lenses slide. To go undercover, at Hogwarts, without her most reliable tool? Without her wand or magic? The girl is proving herself to be more of an idiot than you previously thought.</p>
<p>Between the Wand Tragedy and Hogwarts, very little happens. Even the train ride is insignificant, and with the amount of politics that happen on the tracks, it’s slightly anticlimactic. Not that you would have much to do with politics, anyway. Had the physical altercation with Flint sparked into something more dangerous, you would have been ready. </p>
<p>The girl is Slytherin. Big surprise there. Not. Maybe if she had more of the infamous Potter magic, she would have found her way to Gryffindor, but her father’s magic was so wary of you that you have only merged with enough of it to receive the Family Magic. Oh, and then you improved it. The girl is a parselmouth by your doing. It is a crime to let the famous Peverell magic be forgotten so long. </p>
<p>Besides, even if she had more Potter magic, it’s unlikely that it would have held up to her diamond-hard will. The obsession for potions has not faded, if anything, it's much stronger now that the long-revered idol Professor Snape is literally in sight. </p>
<p>But finally, you’ll have the chance to branch out to other areas of magic other than the beloved potions. The girl will have to participate in classes. </p>
<p>The girl does not participate in other classes. </p>
<p>Oh sure, she says the words and moves her unmagical stick around exactly how they tell her, but completely ignores you in the process. The Malfoy and Parkinson Heirs know what’s wrong. Harry will not be convinced, however. She decides she doesn’t need you. Personally, you agree that floating feathers is a relatively pointless task, but it would be something. </p>
<p>Attempting to channel yourself through the excuse that is her wand is a non-starter. But, if she finds the will, you will have a way. Wandless magic to the rescue. </p>
<p>The girl is irritated at the Malfoy and Parkinson Heirs. For a brief, very brief moment, she finally finds some small desire to use her magic. </p>
<p>That incentive is poking Malfoy with a sharp needle. Violence always was the answer. </p>
<p>Completely bypassing the need for a wand, or “direction” from Harry, you quickly turn the matchstick into a pointy needle. </p>
<p>There. What were people saying about a squib?</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. To potions, or not to potions? That is the question</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Harry is mysterious. Her magic weighs the benefits of potions to her health.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>You guys......your comments are so nice! I love reading them. So, as a thank you, um, here? Another chapter.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The other First Years think Harry is impressive. Well, they think Rigel is impressive, but that’s the point. You think it’s amusing, in a slightly dark way, that everyone except Harry herself appreciates you. </p>
<p>It’s fitting, you suppose. You’re used to getting what you want, and this child is willing to do everything but concede to you. It’s a balancing act, if tug-o-war battles over a muddy field right next to a treacherous cliff could be called “balancing”. </p>
<p>You would like to say that the fascination Harry has inspired among her classmates has been, at least in part, due to your influence, but that could not be further from the truth. The child has you condensed so tightly that she doesn’t even give off an aura, so the peculiarity that is you doesn’t even register on anyone’s magical radar. </p>
<p>(This has the infuriating rebounding effect that you yourself are not able to read anyone’s magic. Does the child not realize this is a hazard to her own safety? How are you supposed to warn her of unscrupulous characters? Trick question, you’re not, she’ll just figure it out on her own, thanks.)</p>
<p>No, Harry has been deemed “mysterious” on account of her obsession with potions alone. So absorbed is she in the calderon that she not only threw all other magical studies into a bin titled “Irrelevant”, but social customs and niceties as well. The Black family is wizarding royalty. Harry gave up on acting like she was part of it not even a day into the school year. </p>
<p>You are frankly astounded that no one has thought to question this. Harry’s inconsistent, yet very powerful feats of magic are also garnering lots of attention, especially the incident during the Quidditch lesson. It was an interesting revelation to learn that, if both you and Harry have enough want and determination to conduct magic through a lifeless wand, it can be done effectively. Too effectively. Wingardium Leviosa does not work like that for a First Year. </p>
<p>She wasn’t entirely incorrect in claiming that her wand was the reason for the spell. </p>
<p>Really, between the complete disregard for social cues and traditional magic, it's a wonder no one is taking a closer look. </p>
<p>Well, that is not entirely true. The Flint Heir took a closer look. </p>
<p>How inconvenient. If Harry wasn’t so determined to keep you under lock and key, you could have easily pulled another stunt like that time in the attic. Granted, that was exactly what got you stuck in your current position in the first place, but that somewhat-unsavavory outcome doesn’t detract from the inherent usefulness of the trick. </p>
<p>However, Flint proves to be a blessing in disguise. If Harry wants to continue to study under the watchful eye of Professor Snape, she must not only do homework for other classes, but invest enough time into them to understand material years beyond her. </p>
<p>Finally. Something other than potions. Harry is a borderline genius. The capacity to learn was never lacking, but the most important part, Harry’s will, has at last been summoned from the deep, deep end of the Potion Sea. </p>
<p>Despite her chronic potions-induced haze of general obliviousness, Harry is now able to use her largely untested social manipulation skills to optimize the amount of time she is able to spend on her favorite subject.</p>
<p>You have to admit, The Look is nothing short of a masterpiece. </p>
<p>Malfoy has taken away the beloved potions book detailing the fascinating data concerning calderon thickness? Use The Look. Convince a fellow Slytherin to help on last-minute Herbology assignment that was put off in interest of spending more time on potions? The Look strikes again. </p>
<p>As irritating as Harry is, you have to admit, there is a sort of unparalleled joy in watching people become entirely discombobulated from but a minute shift of facial features. You are even proud to say you have no part in this “unicorn” expression. You are not needed for this special brand of magic to be successful. </p>
<p>You would even go as far to say that The Look is often more effective than any magical compulsion you could pull off. Especially because your “unsubtle-if-acting-alone” state is not well-suited toward the delicate art of emotional manipulation. </p>
<p>Thankfully, Harry hits a snag in her potions endeavors: Professor Snape. Already wary from her Marauder status, anything but genuity and authenticity will be taken in the worst way possible. Harry knows this. You know this. Harry knows she’s on thin ice, and The Look holds no power over the Potions Master. You also know that you have said power to make or break this opportunity for her. </p>
<p>You ruminate over which course of action to take as the girl writes an inordinate amount of ingredient knowledge on a third of the paper she needs. Honestly, the potions obsession isn’t healthy, and you think the Dementor’s Kiss-worthy-crime she is willingly (and cheerfully) committing speaks enough for itself in that regard. Would it be responsible to do something that would completely ruin her chances at Hogwarts, and inspire her to seek out other veins of magic, or even a different avenue of potions? Probably. The girl will get herself killed at Hogwarts.</p>
<p>Oh, who are you kidding. The child won’t die as long as you’re around, even if her acts of stupidity only continue to increase in both potency and frequency. </p>
<p>Besides, the girl is happy with potions. No, she is euphoric. Considering both that level of dedication and her genius, there’s bound to be at least one or two impossible feats of magic the two of you achieve in that area of research. Impossible magic is exactly your style, and this girl is the best chance in the century for making that happen. </p>
<p>And, call you soft, but there’s something decidedly awful in ruining a child’s life dreams, even as foolhardy and half witted as they may be.</p>
<p>Your moment comes when Snape looks Harry in the eyes, measuring her character, and Harry desperately wishes for the potions master to understand, wants it enough that you are able to take advantage of the loophole you have been offered, and project Harry’s thoughts to Snape via ancient magic that most have forgotten, if Snape’s subsequent reaction is anything to go by. </p>
<p>It is a success. Harry has a panic attack over her secret being discovered, which was not an intended side effect, but perhaps it has the potential to further instill into her the severity of her situation, if Flint’s tenacious silence was not incentive enough. </p>
<p>Snape’s magic is heavy with duty. Appropriately, it is a metal-based core. It suits him well. It is surprised when you make contact, but not scared. Which is good. Scared magic does dangerous things. Snape’s admittedly outstanding grasp of Occlumency may have something to do with his controlled reaction. </p>
<p>Harry is on her way to achieving her dream, with you the unknown, underappreciated support behind several instances of her success. Are you bitter? Maybe a little. Alas, you can only work in small bites with this child. Eventually you’ll nibble enough that she will finally let you go. </p>
<p>And the next item of business is a proper wand. </p>
<p>...perhaps it is more than a simple nibble</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>This felt a bit like a filler chapter, but ah well. We'll get to some more exciting stuff soon.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0005"><h2>5. Over-complication at its finest</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Harry is getting attacked. She eventually has a temper tantrum about potions. Her magic oscillates between "reluctantly amused parent" to "furious force of building power". What's new?</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Someone in Discord was complaining about not having any fic updates. Did I take that as a challenge? Maybe.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Because it is Harry, and because you really shouldn’t have overlooked the fact that Fate truly is the farthest thing from “forgiving”, something, or rather someone, is already trying to kill Harry. </p>
<p>She had been kicked out of the library, of all the ludicrous things. And just as she was about to actually learn something other than potions. You Kill-List (hypothetical, of course) has increased by one after the awful encounter with Madam Pince. </p>
<p>A simple Trip-Jinx is hardly dangerous to anyone, but, as all things seem to, they become much more precarious when stairs are involved. With Hogwarts’ already…questionable…stair system (honestly Rowena was supposed to be the intelligent one, what happened), “precarious” quickly becomes “life-threatening”, especially to idiotic children who don’t understand that their magic is supposed to help them.</p>
<p>You aren’t so connected with Harry as to feel her immediate pain as she goes down, nor are you knocked out, but it is still unpleasant. Luckily, her loss of consciousness means lost control over you, and so you are poised, ready, to mercilessly attack anyone who dare follow through on their murderous plans.</p>
<p>Either they are too much of a coward to finish the job, or the intent was never to fully dispose of Harry, so they don’t return. </p>
<p>Your plans for a wand have been interrupted. You are not pleased. </p>
<p>Harry decides to pull another “I can do it myself” and refuses any treatment for her broken hand. Oh, you understand the need not to end up in the Hospital Wing, but certainly the child would be able to use her brilliant mind to solve the problem in another way? Perhaps go to the recently-intrigued Potions Master and request treatment? Telling lies and weaving excuses has always been a strength of Harry’s. What changed?</p>
<p>Perhaps she is a descendant of Rowena--exquisitely blessed in creativity and ingenuity, but without a lick common sense. The idea has some merit. </p>
<p>Even if you wanted to heal the wrist, you cannot. Not only are you not well-suited toward healing magic, though you can do it well enough, directly interfering with Harry’s body without her explicit will or permission is impossible, even while unconscious. That is a Law you have not yet managed to break or twist to your whims, unlike the loophole that currently allowed you to stand ready to defend her against her attacker.</p>
<p>Alas, Harry is experiencing a hard, and painful, lesson in what it means to not accept help. Well, competent help. Her friends do their best. </p>
<p>Again, people decide to completely ignore that something is incredibly off about Harry. You aren’t sure whether to appreciate the general lack of nosiness at Hogwarts, or to worry for a future generation of unobservant and blind wizards. Your own child is not reassuring in either of those regards, with her one-track mind and naturally poor eyesight. </p>
<p>(Did enhancing many of the Potter Magics also have the simultaneous effect of exponentially worsening Harry’s eyesight. Definitely. And will you ever tell her? Absolutely not. The amount she complains about it will only ensure an epic revenge against you if you do.)</p>
<p>So nobody questions how un-ambidextrous Harry abruptly becomes. </p>
<p>When Harry makes her way into the kitchens a few days later, you want to smack her. Oh, here are some absurdly-eager-to-help creatures that have a unique sort of magic with a nurturing affinity, not to mention they will be loyally tight-lipped about almost anything a Hogwarts student wants them to be, granted said student is not doing anything too nefarious, and the elves like them. </p>
<p>Instead, she wants their help to make a disguise to get into the library.</p>
<p>...which, to be fair, is a good idea, but also horribly-complicated and way more involved than it has to be if Harry simply asks her head of house for help, like she is supposed to. But, you can appreciate the effort. </p>
<p>Harry gets attacked again whilst stuck in a trick stair in a manner vaguely reminiscent of the pranks in her own house, but with far more cruelty. The dungbomb is nasty, and you can’t even properly smell it. </p>
<p>Flint comes by, and as the not-hero he is, decides to be an ars--annoying teenage Slytherin boy and taunts her for a bit before wrangling an extra assignment out of her in exchange for his help. Luckily, because Harry is an over-achiever and more of a Slytherin than Flint could ever hope to be, the extra assignment is already done and in the mail. </p>
<p>You suspect the dungbomb attacker to be the same that sent Harry down the stairs, but without your ability to sense other magic, your thought is pure hypothesis and intuition. </p>
<p>The weeks continue in a frustrating limbo of Harry in a constant state of pain, and unwilling to loosen her control over you to have any modicum of success in classes. If only you had a proper wand, then you would have a small outlet for yourself. Since Harry is not her wand, she can’t completely control you channeling energy through it. </p>
<p>Harry attempts to half-heartedly call upon you in an exam to once again turn a matchstick into a needle. Technically, you could grasp onto even that miniscule amount of want and transfigure it, but the truth is, you’re pissed. She needs to try better if she wants your help anymore. </p>
<p>You. Are. Just. DONE. <br/>You are done with her stubborn desire to figure everything out herself. You are done with the unhealing broken hand. You are done being ignored. </p>
<p>She gets detention. Serves her right. </p>
<p>She gets attacked again on her way back from the trophy. That...is not her fault. Sigh (hypothetically). You are ready. </p>
<p>She escapes to the common room. As prudent as it is, you wish for some sort of confrontation if only to identify the attacker. This ignorance is uncomfortable.</p>
<p>As it is, Harry is finally unable to keep the whole thing a secret, and now has the protection, and fury, of her entire house. Excellent. The girl needs all the help she can get. </p>
<p>… </p>
<p>You can’t help but feel that a victory has been attained when Harry approaches the Weasley Prefect in hopes of better understanding Vanishing. </p>
<p>You watch as the kindle slowly lights in her eyes, not unlike when her mother demonstrated a simple Cure Boils potion so many years ago in the basement of Potter Manor. Indeed, the light will never truly reach the raging bonfire that is Harry’s love for potions, but the healthy amount of curiosity will help round her out. Harry is rather close-minded about some things, and understanding different subjects of magic will eventually help her with potions, even if she doesn’t know it yet. </p>
<p>...she gets a lesson in this soon after, though not in the “all magic relates to each other” kind of way, but rather “if I continue to fail in all my classes there’s a good chance that I might get expelled” aspect. </p>
<p>Even if this revelation to Harry is less thoughtful than the whole idea that understanding Charms and Transfiguration do have rather direct connections to the cauldron, it is just as effective. </p>
<p>Snape accurately guesses that Harry’s wand isn’t much of a wand at all, but rather a fantastic block of anything remotely magical. You especially appreciate his comparison to it being like a stick that was simply picked up from the ground. </p>
<p>You smell the chance here. A chance for a proper wand. A chance for freedom.</p>
<p>As soon as Snape reprimands Harry for her gross negligence of other avenues of magic, it is as if a giant dam in a fast-moving river has suddenly been removed, and you now have more freedom to unleash yourself than you’ve had in years. The desperate desire to show Snape that Harry is capable, worthy of attending Hogwarts. A great, peremeanting fear that she would only be as great as people expected her to be. </p>
<p>Harry actually wants you now. She wants to prove herself. She wants her potions.</p>
<p>You briefly entertain the idea of not obliging her out of pure spite and bitterness at being trapped for so long, but ultimately decide not to for two reasons.</p>
<p>One, an actual wand is on the line here. If the both of you can convince Snape that you’re not completely incompetent, the statisical possiblity of a new wand is almost undeniably a hundred percent.</p>
<p>And two, you have a lot of frustration and honest-to-goodness energy backed up. This is a fantastic outlet. </p>
<p>And so Harry throws a magnificent, magical temper tantrum. The impossible strength of her will allows you the passage you need through the wand. </p>
<p>You happily decimate Snape’s office. </p>
<p>After all is said and done, and Harry is realizing the repercussions of her actions, Snape is, surprisingly, not furious. Instead, you listen in relief as he outlines the plans for a new wand and forces Harry to consciously recognize that she is unjustly terrified of you. </p>
<p>You could, what is it the humans say? Ah yes, you could kiss the man. </p>
<p>You abruptly realize that you are starting to idolize the Potions Master just as much as Harry, and that is definitely not a reassuring thought. </p>
<p>Oh well. You should have at least one thing to agree on.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Thank you all again for your support! I will be responding to comments now that I figured out what to say. And, if you ever want to discuss what's happening in the fanfic, you can PM me, or message me on the discord. I will come out of my Shadows of Lurking to happily babble about whatever this is. My username is very similar to what's on ao3, just without all the numbers.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0006"><h2>6. A welcome party with an unwelcome visitor</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>The wand is finally happening. Harry's magic is beyond thrilled. Of course, it isn't Harry if everything goes right for once.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>This chapter is a little shorter, but that just means you get to read it earlier!</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It is a disquieting revelation to suddenly realize that you are more of a child than your own child.</p>
<p>Why? The wand, of course.</p>
<p>Today is the day where Harry will properly find a wand that suits the both of you. She is nonplussed, only concerned to the point at which potions are involved. You, by comparison, feel as though you have just taken a vial of Felix Felicious and have the inexplicable notion that today will be great. </p>
<p>Had Harry been better attuned to you, she would have definitely noticed your excitement. Snape will not let another shoddy wand be purchased. You can count on him, at least. </p>
<p>Perhaps you should encourage Harry’s potions endeavors more than you have been, if only to push her toward the good influence that is Professor Snape.</p>
<p>Alright, potions shall now be referred to as Potions, with a capital ‘P’, to indicate that it has a higher level of importance in the Harry-Magic agenda. </p>
<p>Harry really should appreciate this show of support, it's a rather big deal. </p>
<p>Things are looking up. Just a little bit ago, Harry got her wrist fixed by someone who’s knowledge in bone-breaking and the subsequent healing is not based on the immature desire to hide ill-gotten injuries from one’s mother. The Weasley Twins are something else, and that is not something you are able to often say about uppity British wizards. </p>
<p>However, just because things are looking up for you does not mean that Harry is undeserving of petty acts of inconvenience.</p>
<p>You spit her out of the Floo with relish. It never gets old. </p>
<p>Once at the shop, Ollivander describes Snape’s wand as “non-comforming” and “combative”. Well that sounds awfully familiar. It just gets easier to like this wizard, doesn’t it? </p>
<p>You are horrified to hear that the unicorn hair in Harry’s wand came from a “particularly docile unicorn”. Unicorns are great, really, they are, but they are just so...innocent, and not to mention willfully stupid, that it is impossible to get along with them. To hear that this one had been especially tame and obedient just adds insult to injury. </p>
<p>Luckily, the wandmaker is less concerned with blood status than he is with ensuring a successful wand-match, deciding to ignore one of the most serious crimes possible to commit in Britain to address the even more serious crime that is Harry’s wand. </p>
<p>At least someone else around here has their priorities straight. He even promises to find a wand despite the very-real possibility of it taking all day. Harry predictably regards this as some sort of punishment, but the decisive statement is nothing other than sweet music to your (hypothetical) ears. </p>
<p>The process begins once again. </p>
<p>Gleefully, you reject wands as if you are some long-forgotten ruler, dismissing priceless jewels of great value and renown, simply because none of them are “quite the right color”. You could make almost any of these wands work. In light of recent events, you have decided you will not settle for anything less than perfect.</p>
<p>Yes, even to the extent that Snape may be forced to parade Harry around to different countries to find a wand, if it comes to that. You are not backing down on this one.</p>
<p>Ollivander manages to find a wand he describes as curiously volatile and protective, paired with the nearly-impossible combination of a phoenix feather, which is supposed to simultaneously indicate great initiative and detachment. Altogether, the wand is weird, and you really didn’t need the personality assessment, no matter how accurate it is. You just want Harry to </p>
<p>Pick.</p>
<p>Up.</p>
<p>The.</p>
<p>Wand. </p>
<p>Fate decides to visit, conjuring up enough of a presence that even Harry feels it. As long as it stays out of yours and Harry’s business, you’ll allow it to spectate on this apparently-fateful event. </p>
<p>Harry picks the wand up, and it’s like coming home. </p>
<p>You can see the holly tree from which this branch was carefully shewn, ancient and young in its timeless grove. Roots wrap possessively around deposits of wild magic in the soil. Bowtruckles flit among the thick, prickly leaves, teasing off volatile, blood-red berries. Petrichor hangs lightly in the air, the ground slippery with fallen leaves and recent rain. The forest is as loud as it is quiet, occasional bird song rippling with the wind, muted steps of a raccoon not far away. </p>
<p>Then, fire that rivals your own. Fierce, protective, never-ending, always changing. A pair of wise eyes see past the part of you that is Harry’s Magic, judge you with remote and distant eyes. Feathers, ash. And then it’s gone.</p>
<p>You come back to yourself, thoroughly befuddled. Harry is looking happier than you thought she would be, and you’re just about ready to call the entire thing an unmitigated success, when you spot Fate.</p>
<p>Fate is tracing a newly-wrought spider web that connects the wand, and by extension you, to an unseen thing in some far away distance. With each trace of its deft touches, the web thickens into something that more closely resembles a vine. You remember vines of old, though this one has black twisted among basilisk green, but you won’t forget that easily. </p>
<p>You level Fate with a look of quiet fury, and gather yourself for battle. </p>
<p>Fate spares you an irritated glance, silently communicating that this is a Debt, and if not paid now, will merely be more expensive later. It is only this reminder that stops you from ripping another Line to shreds. Still, the Line will not grow thicker than it already is, at least not with Fate’s help.</p>
<p>An unseen nod establishes the compromise, and Fate disappears. </p>
<p>You and Harry are told the wand has a brother. You rue the day you’ll meet its holder.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>I really can't think of anything clever to say, so I'll keep it at a simple "thank you" for everything.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0007"><h2>7. To Breathe Once More</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Harry's Magic comes to the rescue. Lee Jordan is a (hopefully) dead man.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Though the times of which you were breathing and mortal are as long-passed as the red-tinted glimmer of an already-dead star in a sky that has not quite forgotten, you will always remember how the release of a held breath is just as much an inhale as it is an exhale. </p><p>The buildup of waste gas, filling the lungs with a sort of aching emptiness, pressing as much as it is constricting. A twist in the chest, darkening around the corners of vision. Faint dizziness. The unmatched relief when it finally passes through parted lips or flared nostrils, the taste of new air, new life, promising survival. </p><p>This is exactly what you feel once Harry begins to use her wand. </p><p>You hadn't realized you had been forced to hold your breath until suddenly you can breathe again, and breathe you do, in great gulping gasps and drawn-out sighs. </p><p>Harry does not appreciate the "breathing". Harry had not been suffocated. She can deal. </p><p>On one hand, she’s happy that the two of you are finally producing results. She just doesn’t appreciate how much larger the results are now that you have some small amount of freedom. Alas, she doesn’t understand that if she would simply release you more often, you wouldn't be forced to discharge the energy you have built up in great expulsions of magic. </p><p>It’s yet another frustrating loop. Your overcompensations present in her spells only support her belief that you must be controlled even more, and you must continue to force an inappropriate amount of magic into extremely undemanding spells. Harry does less spells, magical amplification rises in their scarcity, and it just worsens. </p><p>Now that you are aware of your suffocation, it is impossible to ignore it as you had before, and you truly wonder if getting a wand was a good idea. </p><p>Well, there are a few good things that have come out of this, as reluctant as you are to admit them.</p><p>Harry thinks you are brilliant. Terrifying, but brilliant. At least your usefulness to her has increased. Also, the small vein that now connects you to the world outside of Harry has allowed you the tiniest spread of your magical awareness. You barely catch hints of other’s cores and ambient magic, but it is something, and you are improving it constantly. It’s not as if Harry notices the miniscule drain on her core. </p><p>You decide that there is something off about Quirrell, and thus take his class as an opportunity for optimum magical drainage. Not to mention, the man has always been a prat to Harry, and that is as good a reason as any. </p><p>You take every chance to release energy buildup. Harry stubs her toe, thinks idly of this making her late to Potions, and you grasp onto that with vengeance, and soon Harry is completely healed, socks without blood, and you slightly appeased. </p><p>The two of you battle in class. You, losing patience fast, complete spells without any magical shaping necessary. Harry, picking up surprisingly fast on your antics, counters with her diamond-will so as to only allow spells to happen exactly when she wants them to. </p><p>She blames it all on the wand, the poor thing. It’s not as though it has any sort of sentience, only the Elder Wand has that (and it’s more terrifying than most would believe), but you can’t help but remember the echoes of the timeless tree in the grove and a flash of flaming feathers and think that it isn’t fair that now both you and the miraculous wand are stuck with a girl so opposed to magic. </p><p>...</p><p>Harry almost dies on Halloween, and you are terrified. </p><p>The potential for death was not… impossible, even with your intervention.</p><p>For starters, you tasted no whiff of malicious energy from her pumpkin juice. It was only a child with unconventional magic, a Hufflepuff, that knocked away the corrosive liquid. Watching it burn through wood and flesh alike, with no indication of slowing, made you wonder at your own ability to counter it, had it made its way inside Harry.</p><p>You have been detached from the world of wizards too long. It is obvious that they have developed even more ways of damaging themselves than you had anticipated. You have become arrogant in your belief that you could save Harry from any threat at Hogwarts, deadly or otherwise.</p><p>You have underestimated humanity, and that is the farthest thing from a compliment.</p><p>As such, you are on constant guard, and on a knife's edge. You take to syphoning magic off at things as silly as Vanishing Quirrell’s head scarf, just to alleviate some of your anxiety. You work tirelessly at channeling the tiny stream of magic to your surroundings, and it's like spreading hard butter over a large expanse of soft bread. It’s not enough, and what you can cover doesn’t stick very well. </p><p>The Weasley Twins give an ominous warning, the thick consternation of their magic betraying their show of ease and merriment. You scream soundlessly at Harry as she allows them to leave. </p><p>A cast spell that you are able to sense but not intercept, and Harry is on the floor. They are nothing more than ropes, and you are FIRE, for Fate’s sake, they should BURN and WITHER like helpless vines under the strength of your will. </p><p>What is that Muggle idiom? That a team is only as strong as your weakest member?</p><p>Harry’s own fear of you will kill her if she doesn’t fear something more, and, given the child’s disregard for her safety, does not allow much possibility for that happening. </p><p>Lee Jordan. You never bothered to learn his name, and while there was no reason for you to have done so, you can’t help but feel that you’ve failed. </p><p>“I’m almost disappointed,” he says, arrogant and unaware of the lethal danger that hovers just below her skin and lies poised in the tip of the Fate-cursed wand. If Harry falls unconscious, the boy is dead. </p><p>He will not be disappointed for long. </p><p>Harry plays diplomat and keeps him talking. Smart move. While the girl is helpless with her magic, the ridiculous fear holding you back even still, she was not a Slytherin for sheer ambition alone. Already she knows how to play the Long Game, and it is in her favor to make this game as long as possible.</p><p>It is not long enough. The jealous, cruel boy pulls some strange imitation of natural life out of a bag of the strongest skin known to wizard, and threatens Harry with ultimate ruin to her life-long, soul-nourishing dream. Potions. </p><p>And, finally, Harry is truly afraid. More than that, she is furious. </p><p>She calls vocally for help, and while Jordan’s hand smothers her screams to her friends, there is no possible way in the universe that he can prevent you from coming to Harry’s aid. The thin stream of access slowly, but with increasing speed, begins to widen into a brook, a river, and somehow all at once it becomes a wave.</p><p>You are of Fire, and you channel not the freezing, merciless, drowning waves of the sea, but a volcanic explosion, temperatures having reached a boiling point and expanded into an amalgamation of gravity-defying force and lava. </p><p>The insect is incinerated immediately, unable to withstand the heat of invisible flames, and Jordan is thrown against the stone walls of the castle, a careful, decisive SNAP to his wrist as he goes down.</p><p>The only reason he is not dead is because Harry prevents it. </p><p>Lava is not able to stop until it has cooled, and so Harry directs you to other attentions until you stop weeping magic. You shred the ropes with dark satisfaction, permanently changing them back into stalks of wheat. They will never be ropes again. </p><p>Thoroughly drained, you bask in the feeling of space, in a strange freshness of yourself that has come from the drainage of old, pent up magic. Feeling happy and free for the first time in years, you give Harry a smug, pleased nudge that says “See what I can do?” before you retreat back to the center of a depleted core to rejuvenate. </p><p>One life-threatening danger neutralized.</p><p>Fate only knows how many more to go.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>This was fun to write! I'm honestly a little startled at how many people are invested in this admittedly-strange perspective. But, because you are, who am I to refuse you another chapter? </p><p>In all seriousness, you guys are so cool.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0008"><h2>8. Third time is not the charm</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Several people try to explain to Harry that her magic won't actively try to kill her if she releases it. She doesn't really believe them, and the Rigel Plot thickens.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>We're going to pretend that I was allowing this fic to "marinate" and was not simply being procrastinated on. Have a few thousand words to make up for it I guess?</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>You and Harry stumble upon another consensus, significant only because there are so few of them, which is that going home for the winter holiday is the farthest thing from relaxing. </p>
<p>After going out with a literal bang in Quirrell’s class (you suspect, though you haven’t been actively counting, his destroyed dummy count is enough to warrant an unwanted supply purchase over the break), the poor wand is shoved unceremoniously into the darkest corner of Harry’s trunk, and your weak grasp of control fades with its absence. Harry rationalizes the need to conceal her true wand to avoid discrepancies in hers and Archie’s pretense, but that rationalization is only a thin film that hides her true fear of you that only deepened after the Lee Jordan Incident. </p>
<p>Harry is miserable enough about going home and lying to everyone, so you maturely refrain from making her life more difficult. For now. </p>
<p>You meet Sirius Black at the train station. Harry stumbles her way through playing Archie, and you arrive at Number 12 Grimmauld Place to be greeted by a host of unintelligent snakes, charmed green in support of “Archie’s” Slytherin placement. You marvel at Harry’s own stupidity in thinking that the snakes are speaking Queen’s English, not to mention Lord Black’s ridiculous notion that he could weasel his way back into his son’s good graces after forcing him to go to Hogwarts with childish displays of support. </p>
<p>If he had been talking to the real Arcturus Black that had gone to Hogwarts, you doubt Archie would have been as nearly as amiable as Harry is acting. He is friendly and cheerful enough, but you know enough about the boy that he does not forgive those who stand in the way of his dreams. Not quickly, at least.</p>
<p>Alas, Archie had happily gone to AIM, and will likely hold none of the burning resentment that another Archie in an alternate dimension would have, had he gone to Hogwarts. One crisis diverted at the cost of many new ones taking strong roots. </p>
<p>… </p>
<p>You silently applaud Archie as he berates Harry’s poor communication and tendency to put herself into unnecessary danger. Then, having exchanged naught but a few letters over the months, the two attempt to cobble together enough information to feasibly pass as each other in front of their parents. </p>
<p>Archie thinks you are “wicked”. You knew you always liked this boy for a reason. </p>
<p>Harry thinks you are “dangerous”. You do not know why you still seem to like this girl. </p>
<p>She’s not wrong, but she is very close-minded. And scared. And instead of facing that fear, she shoves you further and further down, as if the bottom of a well is something that infinitely stretches to her desire. It’s not. You’re close to the hypothetical bottom, and when she pushes you to that, it won’t be pretty. Perhaps this is why she did not reach Gryffindor. Harry would prefer to ignore her fear than muster up enough courage to address it. </p>
<p>Perhaps it's a bit harsh of a judgement, she is still a child. </p>
<p>She and Archie squabble about your existence. Harry waxes eloquent about the strength of power being dangerous to things such as fairness and justice, as if fairness and justice don’t hold a potent strength of their own. She overthinks her desire conflicting with her needs and the good of other people, while Archie futilely tries to explain that it doesn’t work like that. Which is true. You will listen to Harry. For the most part. </p>
<p>It’s just as amusing as it is frustrating. </p>
<p>Harry toys with the idea of adopting some mental regiment to better ensure her desires don’t get out of hand, and you know that Archie was not able to get through to her. </p>
<p>It would be better if someone else who had wild magic could explain things like this to her, but Harry’s family is very ordered in terms of magic, all but her mother, who fears her own magic with such a vengeance that using her as a role model would be nothing more than damaging. </p>
<p>Speaking of Lily’s magic, you note with no small degree of wariness that it’s dangerous, explosive quality is slightly reflected in yourself. This is not good. Not good at all. You have no desire to turn into the untamed, near-feral beast that is Lily’s magic. You must work on patience. </p>
<p>Patience.</p>
<p>Patience.</p>
<p>PATIENCE. </p>
<p>You never used to have problems with patience, traveling aimless around Earth and beyond for centuries. Things came and went when they did, not too soon and not too late, just when they happened, as the universe declared. Now, your impatience seems to rise like steam trapped under the lid of a boiling cauldron, danger climbing for every second the lid is left on, risk of explosion imminent. </p>
<p>You give Lily’s magic a dirty “look”. You didn’t used to have these issues. </p>
<p>During dinner, the co-conspirators almost give themselves away no less than six times, and you honestly wonder about other powers in play that allowed them to get away with it. Harry is simultaneously the luckiest and unluckiest child you know. </p>
<p>At least the two are smart enough to learn from their failures, and Rigel is born. </p>
<p>Rigel is logically a good idea, but bad for both children’s time management capabilities and peace of mind. To learn everything the other has learned, to develop a character for Rigel so well-known to the both of them as to ensure near-perfect role-playing, well, it takes time, effort, a certain draining of the spirit that lies in The Self that simply isn’t healthy.</p>
<p>But, they are dedicated, and so must you be too. </p>
<p>Does your dedication have anything to do with Harry’s frankly fascinating ideas surrounding the unorthodox alterations to Polyjuice Potion that are sure to receive full Harry Willpower and attention at some point in the near future? Yes. The excitement of new magic is unmatched, and you can’t wait to work with Harry on these impossible (and also possible but just very much ignored) ways to advance magical capability. </p>
<p>… </p>
<p>Later over the break, Archie once again acts as a voice of common sense and takes it upon himself to inform Harry that snakes can’t speak English.</p>
<p>You wish their first thought hadn’t been that Harry was a Dark Witch (you take great pains in maintaining a Neutral energy, thank you very much), but at least she knows she can speak to snakes. It says something about her education that her parents never took her to an environment where she could even briefly interact with a snake to figure this out sooner. <br/>While Archie has a mild panic attack on the implications this has on his future career as a healer, Harry turns her thoughts to exploiting this newfound talent to gather rare potions ingredients. </p>
<p>Very pragmatic. You approve. </p>
<p>On Christmas, Harry and Archie start their own gift tradition that you have shortened to “Which is Which, and Where to Put It”. It reminds you of all the times they traded Halloween Candy. Harry had convinced her father that candy corn was her favorite candy, despite loathing it with a deep passion, in order to win the bet she had against Sirius. She was successful, too successful, and now James gives her a large bag each year, which she promptly swaps with Archie for all his dark chocolate. He's too nice to tell Remus he can’t stand the bitterness. </p>
<p>Harry, for some unfathomable reason, decided that unicorn hair friendship bracelets were a perfect gift for her friends. There is nothing socially wrong about this move, but you greatly disapprove of her material of choice. </p>
<p>Unicorns are not friendly. They are largely solitary, dislike most humans, and the only reason many of their hairs are collected in the first place is because they shed like fluffy cats in the summer. The hairs used for wand cores must be taken directly from the unicorn, with permission, to retain their potency, but everything else is fair game to just about anyone who’s brave (stupid) enough to tromp their way through the dark forests most unicorns prefer to live in. </p>
<p>You have a theory that they like the way the shadows contrast with their bright, silvery, hair. They are vain enough for that to be the case. </p>
<p>The girl, Pansy, holds a great fondness for the creature, however, and Draco likes to be included, so the gift does make some level of sense. </p>
<p>… </p>
<p> </p>
<p>Back at Hogwarts, Harry successfully lobbies Snape into letting her have her own Potions lab. You’re just grateful you’ll be able to drain some of your pent-up energy into something. Harry didn’t brew any Potions over break, a surprise to you both, and you’re both antsy because of it, if for vastly different reasons. </p>
<p>While Potions is looking up, nearly everything else is in a very deep canyon. You’ve taken to pressing pure, unadulterated wild magic into Harry’s spells, because their energy is much more dense than the structured spells she is supposed to be practicing, and makes you feel less like bursting at the seams.</p>
<p>Harry compares you to a child acting out. You resent that.</p>
<p>Okay, maybe there’s a little truth in it, but you aren’t going to apologize. Or stop. </p>
<p>Flint complains about Harry’s work and essays for him being “too good”, which is plain irritating in itself, since he doesn’t actually have something he wants Harry to do other than to “be more careful”. You can agree that caution is something she needs help with in spades, but rather disagree with the thought that it should be directed towards not being caught cheating. </p>
<p>As if academics weren’t already going badly enough, the Rosier and Rookwood heirs take it upon themselves to graciously inform Harry that there is a very good chance that she’ll be forced into an arranged marriage with one of her classmates that she’s not technically supposed to know, sometime in the future.</p>
<p>Perfect. Just what the two of you needed. More things to stress about. </p>
<p>It was good of them to give Harry the warning, but there’s something to be said for blissful ignorance. </p>
<p>At least Sirius Black will be getting a letter from his “son” this month. </p>
<p>… </p>
<p>You find yourself inclined to forgive Pansy for her misplaced devotion to unicorns after she subtly manipulates Harry into visiting the House Elves again to help her with a spell that removes dye stains. </p>
<p>House Elves coincidentally have very chaotic magic. Many would think that, given their range of magic being mostly limited to domestic work and the fact that it needs to be tied to a more stable point of magic to function. House Elf Magic would be ordered in nature. That could not be further from the truth.</p>
<p>House Elves rely nearly exclusively on the ‘want’ of their magic. How or where this ‘want’ takes place is highly variable to each elf and the situation. They have nothing resembling spells. Their magic simply molds itself to unspoken want from the elves, and thus rarely does House Elf magic do the exact same thing twice. </p>
<p>“You is pulling in the energy, Young Sir, but you is not letting it out.”</p>
<p>This particular elf, Binny, is exactly what Harry needs. What you need. House Elves don’t need aura projections to sense magic, and Binny knows precisely how you’re feeling. Well, probably not precisely, but you assume you’re emitting such a strong feeling of impatience and displeasure that it's hard to miss. </p>
<p>Harry declares her wand is “confused”. Binny takes a good look at you, though it looks like she’s just looking at Harry so the child is unsuspecting, and you know you are as close to “confused” as the Weasley Twins are to Snape after pranking the Slytherins. </p>
<p>You’re very far away from confused. You’re quietly furious. </p>
<p>However, “confused” is a far safer word than flesh-searingly furious, so Binny latches onto it.</p>
<p>“Young Sir’s wand isn’t being confused, Young Sir’s magic is being confused.”</p>
<p>Harry has the audacity to ask why, and you decide that it would be counterproductive to show her WHY while Binny is so helpfully telling Harry the exact things you currently cannot. </p>
<p>Binny keeps up with the safe “confused” motif as she walks Harry through the first baby steps in understanding you. You are highly insulted to hear Harry think that the greatest benefit in using her magic is to “not stand out like a freak”.</p>
<p>Still smarting from the insult, you waste no opportunity when George Weasley comes in.</p>
<p>You send Weasley a postcard, “Greetings from Bora Bora!” and wonder if he picks up on the pun of the doubled name being a reference to his identical twin. </p>
<p>Perhaps it is too subtle. </p>
<p>Even if nobody gets your attempt at humor (you never claimed to be funny), he does like the card. So, you take it upon yourself to turn all the saltshakers into postcards. </p>
<p>Now he thinks you have humor. It’s the simple things. You need to remember that with teenage boys. Not everyone is looking for hidden meanings like Harry. </p>
<p>As a fellow wielder of wild magic, he also takes a shot at explaining magic to Harry, saying you won’t do anything that truly goes against her wishes. You think that George is able to get through to her slightly more, possibly due to the fact that he openly agreed you were mocking Harry instead of declaring that “magic doesn’t mock” like most other people would. </p>
<p>Now, if only Snape joined the “Magic’s Not Scary” campaign, you might actually be getting somewhere.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Here's another one, kinda a filler, but we need some build up before the Sleeping Sickness.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0009"><h2>9. The Magic Sciencist</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Harry learns imbuing is something that needs to happen for Potions, and she is finally convinced of the usefulness of her magic. Her magic, in the meantime, is bored, and turns to magical theory for entertainment.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Did I try to incorporate actual science into a VERY fantasy-based story? You bet I did. Is it accurate? Probably not.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Harry botches a potion and, given her reaction, you would have thought the world was on the brink of collapse. </p>
<p>You don't have much sympathy, to no one's surprise (you say this as though there are others unlucky enough to be stuck with Harry to even be surprised). It's not like any other eleven year-olds are clamping down on their magic enough that they can't manage to ambiently imbue simple potions.</p>
<p>Also, failure is good for Harry. It keeps her from getting too arrogant. Then again, seeing her quick arrival at the idea that the recipe was wrong, not her, shows that there's still a long road toward improvement.</p>
<p>Not that you're really one to talk about humility, but you are rather fond of the idiom, "Those who cannot do, teach". </p>
<p>Of course, when Harry learns it’s not the Potion recipe’s fault, the immediate culprit is you. Who else? There’s obviously something wrong with you. She is convinced. </p>
<p>Harry produces a thoroughly accurate, if unintentional, picture of her cousin Archie as she rants dramatically and with great fervor over the ultimate failure of her Potions career. Despite her assurance that she will never be able to brew complicated potions, she is already mentally dedicating herself to theory work, the consideration for other areas of magic not even touched upon. </p>
<p>At least she’s dedicated. </p>
<p>You abruptly realize as soon as Snape starts talking that Harry has hit another snag in Potions. </p>
<p>She needs her magic.</p>
<p>She needs YOU.</p>
<p>She needs you for Potions. </p>
<p>You would jump for joy, if you could. However, there’s not enough space in the core, so you settle for a promise to yourself to celebrate later, when Harry starts to use her magic. Which will be soon. Potions are on the line. You have suddenly become Priority Number 1.</p>
<p>It’s time for an experiment you’ve been working on.</p>
<p>To put things simply, you’ve been bored. Harry’s continued deception is only interesting for so long until it just becomes a normal part of her life. Her life hasn’t been in immediate danger for at least a few weeks now. Fate has fu---, ehm, left you alone, ever since the wand match, and you have not had any reason to stare forcefully at the nosy entity for hours on end, promised, impossible murder in the message of your entire essence. </p>
<p>Ever since you studied Lily’s wild magic, and the distressing similarities to your own, you have been toying with the idea of permanent magical transfer to non-living things. The theory closely follows the Inheritance Theory of wizards, which states that during pregnancy, a child’s parents’ magical signatures will undergo magical transcription and/or replication, the production of which will be transferred to the child to replicate on their own, slowly but surely building up a stable magical core that will support the child’s magic lines when it is born. </p>
<p>It is closely similar to the discovered DNA replication that Muggles discovered, though far less is known about it, and it is not fully correct.</p>
<p>Just take Harry for example, born with unfilled magic lines and no core, her mother’s magic too feral and ferocious to allow James’ magic to the child, and too distracted fighting Lily to lend any magic of its own. It’s likely that Lily’s magic would have eventually noticed the child before it was too late, and living constantly on Potter ancestral lands would have ensured the Potter Magic be transferred to Harry. </p>
<p>However, this Inheritance Theory does hold merit, especially when it comes to Pureblood witches and wizards, and just because you and Harry didn’t exactly abide by it, doesn’t mean you can’t try to make it work. You would also guess that Inheritance Theory relies very much on ordered magic. At first, you thought this might be an issue to your experiment, considering how wild you are in nature, but you hypothesize that with Harry’s impeccable control and your own desire to be more ordered will allow it some success.</p>
<p>And Snape offers just the perfect opportunity. </p>
<p>Medi-minis. </p>
<p>You marvel that you continue to only be pleased with this wizard. He has not disappointed you yet, which is nothing short of a miracle. Everyone disappoints you. Yes, even Harry. Especially Harry. </p>
<p>Medi-minis, most importantly, will force Harry to use her magic and give you the opportunity to release long-held, stale magic. Luckily, magic can’t exactly “rot”, but you swear you can smell a dry, musty scent about yourself. Secondly, this is the exact thing you can practice on to test your own Inheritance Theory, and with that potentially challenge Magical Permanence Laws, which state that all magics have varying degrees of Half-Lives in which the magical energy outside one’s core will disintegrate by halves after each elapsed half-life. Usually, this law only applies to magics that aren’t grounded in magic-stabilizing materials, such as potions ingredients and ward stones, which typically ensure longer magical “life”.</p>
<p>But you don’t exactly see witches and wizards disintegrating, so you think that applying Inheritance Magic instead of simple magic casting or imbuing will change things up again. </p>
<p>Lastly, the medi-minis support Rigel’s “Healer” ruse, and while relatively insignificant, it never hurts to give more evidence that Rigel wanted to be a Healer all along. Again, you are extremely dubious at the believability of this lie (Harry isn’t subtle when it comes to her all-encompassing need to brew) but it's something. </p>
<p>… </p>
<p>The first three medi-minis blow up.</p>
<p>For once, the explosions aren’t your fault, but rather Harry is so poorly-adjusted to you that not only does she shove you into the medi-minis as if you a nail being pounded into a particularly hard plank of wood, she also does so with entirely too much magic.</p>
<p>And then blames it on you, because you are “violent”. Very mature. This is entirely her. You’re just along for the bumpy ride. It’s not like you dislike blowing things up. Just ask Quirrell’s defense dummies. Oh right, you can’t.</p>
<p>Harry is then told something by her friends that she should have, by all accounts, already known, and that is using magic requires you to USE YOUR MIND. </p>
<p>This girl. Hopeless. </p>
<p>Apparently using the mind for magic is just a “neat trick” for visualization. </p>
<p>You decide to spontaneously give her the very rare, though not much sought after, title “The Dumbest Genius Known to Wizardkind”. </p>
<p>Harry decides on a “pouring” method in place of her shoving, which is...better, but not ideal. You are not water. You don’t “pour”. Even more so, pouring is very placid, very slow, and very much something you are not. But at least it’s better than trying to chop you up. Normally, such a thing would be impossible, but it IS Harry, so you feel your wary feelings and Definitely Not Panic at the idea are perfectly valid.</p>
<p>You oblige her, though, mainly because you’ve finally got the opportunity to practice your Inheritance and Permanence Theories. </p>
<p>One green ball. One success. Now time for a subconscious lesson on manners.</p>
<p>You two are a partnership. Not a master-servant relationship. You send this message humming through the veins of her magic lines, letting her know calmly, but with crystal clarity, that that is not how things are done around here.</p>
<p>She gets the message. She asks for magic the next time.</p>
<p>The girl is smart. You happily assist, and the ball is immediately green. Hopefully, at some point in the future, the two of you will have built up enough trust that this whole asking business won’t even be necessary (and the trust would actually allow you to help her more with her mental defences), but it is a start, and sometimes starting is the hardest part of a learning process.</p>
<p>Better to not get too optimistic with Harry, though. </p>
<p>The next ten medi-minis are a breeze, Harry is pleased about her newfound controlled imbuing, and you are satisfied with your little experiment. Now all that is left to do is wait and observe if, and for how long, the magic stays in the medi-minis. </p>
<p>Neither of you are tired after this ordeal. Harry’s friends hide their astonishment well, but not completely, and you can already see the cogs turning in their heads, reevaluating Rigel. No longer is Rigel a Potions Nerd, but a Powerful Potions Nerd. And many would say that makes all the difference.</p>
<p>Power is important, of course, but overrated. Authentic creativity, and the ambition to see such creations through, is what often leads to true, lasting greatness. </p>
<p>That probably makes you a Ravenclaw. </p>
<p>There are worse things to be. Imagine being a unicorn. </p>
<p>… </p>
<p>It was obviously too much to ask that Harry’s life not be seriously threatened more than once in a year. </p>
<p>Harry’s classmates are dropping like flies that flew too close to an electrical fence but didn’t actually die, instead lying paralyzed on the grass until they’re able to get their bearings about them once more and fly off.</p>
<p>But the children who have slipped into comas haven’t woken up. And nobody can wake up. </p>
<p>The Sleeping Sickness is upon Hogwarts. </p>
<p>And it’s attacking children exactly Harry’s age.</p>
<p>You would like to pin this on Fate, but this ploy is far too blunt for any of Fate’s subtle machinations. It stinks strongly of agenda and hidden meanings. </p>
<p>In other words, it’s an unknown enemy. Hogwarts is an invisible battleground that most don’t know they walk. And the target is the most vulnerable.</p>
<p>Call it instinct or intuition, but you are certain this is not ordinary or even magical sickness. Either some entity like Fate is behind it, or worse, a member of humanity has taken initiative. </p>
<p>Attacks against the weak speak of the worst sort of enemy. </p>
<p>Let them come. Fire is the element of burning renewal, cleansing flames that annihilate disease and sickness from the soil and the life which sits atop it, clearing the way for the strange, stubborn strength that is New Life, to wind its way determinately through the ashes of necessary demise.  </p>
<p>Let them come. </p>
<p>You will burn. </p>
<p>You are ready.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Still having a fun time, I hope? Good. Because things are about to go DOWN.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0010"><h2>10. Do you believe in magic?</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Everybody's exhausted and Harry and her magic save the day. That's really it.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>I feel like this definitely could have been at least 3 chapters but I was too stubborn to let that happen.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Harry adopts a hero-complex, and you aren’t sure whether you should milk the short-term benefits for what they’re worth now, or worry about the implications for this attitude in the future. </p>
<p>Of course, brewing hundreds of Sweat-Inducers in the span of a few weeks isn’t exactly what most would consider heroic, nor is it without desire to impress one certain Potions Master, but Harry’s natural response to stress being an inclination to help the community speaks for itself.</p>
<p>You are not hero-material, and Harry isn’t really in a good place to have the attention that comes with being a hero. Though, maybe you’re taking this brewing-frenzy too seriously. Harry likes to brew. Then again, Harry never does anything by halves, and if she’s this determined to help people at eleven years old, you can only imagine how it's going to be a few years from now.</p>
<p>It’s not like altruism is a bad thing, in fact, as you and Harry become more powerful, being seen as approachable and charitable will make people less wary of your power. And it's exactly something needlessly extreme that Archie would do if he were actually at Hogwarts. </p>
<p>Above all else though, the brewing spree has brought about an almost-constant demand on Harry’s magical reserves, and you haven’t felt this good in years. </p>
<p>Maybe it’s not the healthiest way for Harry to cope with the helplessness and fear that currently hangs like an acrid cloud of smoke over the younger years, holing herself up like this and abandoning almost everything in favor of continuous brewing, but you can’t find it in yourself to protest the extra space you have been granted, if only temporarily. Besides, you know you can trust the Malfoy and Parkinson Heirs to intervene before Harry becomes too obsessive.</p>
<p>That is, if they, too, manage to not succumb to this magical coma. </p>
<p>… </p>
<p>Harry the Healer strikes again after a slight Quidditch mishap leaves Draco Malfoy with an injury that, with a Pureblood’s fragile bone structure and delicate skin, has him complaining like a spoiled, groomed kneazle kitten that fell out of its overpriced cat tree. That’s not to say the injury isn’t genuine, but it is clear that the boy isn’t used to pain. You’re pleased to see that Harry also doesn’t hold overwhelming sympathy for Draco’s measly “bruise”. </p>
<p>Again, you find yourself aligning to the slightly-strange but still effective arrangement of Healing, and you flow into Draco’s arm with intent. Healing isn’t difficult, but it is a bit like navigating a world that’s shifted two inches to the left. Do-able, especially with practice, but always a little odd. You finish repairing tissue with efficiency, and draw back into Harry.</p>
<p>Draco is looking at Harry as though she’s an angel, and you can’t help but bemoan the added complications that a crush, of all things, is going to add into the chaos that is Harry’s life. </p>
<p>And really, if Harry were actually Archie, the two boys are cousins, and second cousins at that. Are wizards trying to stunt their magic?</p>
<p>Oh wait. Yes, they are, even if they don’t know it. </p>
<p>Not a bloody scientist among them.</p>
<p>You spare a brief moment of appreciation for Harry’s own scientific tendencies, before quickly returning to your perpetual state of modest disapproval. Harry’s internal begging for your cooperation during the Healing process does not sit right with you. She should be treating you as a team member, not some sort of hostile beast with an unusually high degree of intelligence. </p>
<p>Draco begins babbling at how impressed his father would be at Harry’s display of Healing magic, and you are now definitely sure this crush is not going away anytime soon. Once Draco’s father is involved, everything's serious.</p>
<p>… </p>
<p>The Weasley twins decide to replace Lee with Harry as their Prank Sounding Board, and you can’t imagine why they would want HARRY, of all people, arguably one of the least responsible people ever, to judge what exactly constitutes a “good idea”.</p>
<p>However, Harry has almost always risen to the challenge, and sends the two conduits of chaos off with bold ideas to prank the Headmaster and Co. </p>
<p>The next lunch becomes a brief, if very entertaining, Renaissance Fair. You note with interest that the costumes of professors are true to the time period, if slightly embellished for comedic effect. Somebody did their research. </p>
<p>… </p>
<p>Harry struggles through attempting to learn Occlumency and, unlike the general impassivity that you held during previous efforts, you observe with increasing worry.</p>
<p>The sickness spreading through Hogwarts has yet to be identified, and the cases only continue to climb. Since there are no physical symptoms before the coma strikes, you hypothesize that the attack is on the mind, not the body. If that is the case, Harry needs to learn better Occlumency, and fast.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, the concept of simply “not-thinking” about anything is completely foreign to her, and you can’t disagree with the sentiment. Not-thinking isn’t exactly a skill you have, either. </p>
<p>Despite this hindrance, Harry slowly edges closer to finding her Mindscape. Your surroundings are suddenly alight with the cool, foggy sunlight of a deeply overcast day. Harry’s shadowy, scattered Secrets suddenly shoot off as if Summoned, and coalesce under a looming, expanding mountain. </p>
<p>You would applaud, if doing so wouldn’t inevitably break her concentration. </p>
<p>You realize you should have applauded anyway, because Pansy Parkinson is shaking Harry back to reality. She is close enough that you can taste her anxiety.</p>
<p>Theodore Nott has dropped into the coma.</p>
<p>The Slytherins are falling.</p>
<p>… </p>
<p>In a long story that can be summed up by declaring that Harry is the worst kind of overachiever, she makes friends with a deadly snake named Treeslider and fulfills her dream of collecting rare Potions ingredients with her Parseltongue. </p>
<p>Professor Snape and Harry get into a heated argument about Harry’s brewing capabilities and accountability as a Potioneer, both of which she takes great offense to, and, after the misunderstanding is cleared up and Snape is suitably, if invisibly, chastened, the two of them happily pretend nothing has happened and continue on with further Potions Plans. You really think Snape could have stood to fully deliver his apology, the man has enough pride to fill a large cauldron and then some, but Harry decides it doesn’t really matter, and soon enough the conversation turns to the strangeness of Harry’s magic. </p>
<p>Hewn from the same branch, the two of them. Or is it carved from the same rock? You can never keep up with the idioms.</p>
<p>Harry has the gall to tell Snape, universally-acknowledged as one of the best Potions Masters in history, that he’s “overestimating how difficult imbuing is” after he expresses his disbelief at the sheer number Potions Harry was able to brew. </p>
<p>You laugh silently. Imbuing Sweat-Inducers? Why, you barely break a sweat!</p>
<p>If the Weasley twins were here, and if they could hear you, you bet they would have laughed.</p>
<p>Harry foolishly agrees to a core linkage with Snape. However innocent his intentions might be now, his knowledge could potentially be fatal to the continuation of Harry’s ruse. There isn’t really a reasonable excuse for Harry to say no, though, so you throw caution to the wind and link with Snape’s core. </p>
<p>Technically speaking, Snape was only invited into Harry’s core, and not the other way around, but denying bilateral participation is the height of discourtesy in magical affairs, so, grasping onto Harry’s curiosity of Snape’s core, you invite yourself for a visit.</p>
<p>It’s informative to you, and a good learning experience for Harry.</p>
<p>It also confuses Snape even more, which is only fair after the slew of insults he threw at Harry just five minutes ago. The man deserves to be thrown off a little.</p>
<p>As much as you like the wizard, you’re always on Harry’s side first and foremost, especially when said wizard is being an ars---rude.</p>
<p>Snape tells Harry that she is doing a “rare thing” after she convinces him to allow her to brew Aurora’s Breath , to which she nobly declares something about the state of the world being more important than her response to it. She really needs to learn how to take a compliment. </p>
<p>The three of you fall into conjecture about the sickness, though everyone but you is unaware of your participation. Snape also believes the sickness is transferred mind-to-mind, and for the first time, you speculate that Harry’s unyielding control over her magical output may actually be saving the two of you from contracting the illness. Magical infection is no joke.</p>
<p>You amend to draw the thin stream of magic of magic you constantly channel through the holly and phoenix wand back into yourself. It’s a time of precautions, not a time of rebellion.</p>
<p>However, if this sickness really is more like the potential curse Harry is thinking about, you aren’t sure how much magical precaution will do for you against a malevolent piece of magic intent upon invading the minds and magic of young witches and wizards for some equally malevolent agenda of the original caster. A better response might be to fight fire with fire.</p>
<p>Oddly enough, you’ve always been pretty good at that.</p>
<p>… </p>
<p>A few decades ago, a musical group rose to popularity in the Muggle world. They were called Queen (still might be, if they’re still around. You haven’t exactly bothered to check). One of your favorite pieces from them was a song titled “Another One Bites the Dust”.</p>
<p>It’s lyrics are now on constant repeat in the edges of your consciousness. </p>
<p>"And another one gone, and another one gone..."</p>
<p>You wonder at when Pansy or Draco might finally fall ill, and you and Harry can embark on some impossible quest to save them. It’s all about incentive with Harry. Right now, you’re in a state of anxious limbo, waiting for the other boot to drop. (Boot? Shoe?) </p>
<p>Theodore Nott.</p>
<p>Vincent Crabbe.</p>
<p>Gregory Goyle.</p>
<p>Tracy Davis.</p>
<p>Daphne Greengrass.</p>
<p>Millicent Bulstrode. </p>
<p>"Another one bites the dust!"</p>
<p>You’ve become cynical. </p>
<p>… </p>
<p>Harry finally comes to her senses about the loose end that is Flint as the threat of the sickness creeps closer, and sets about relentlessly researching ways to keep him quiet. The piece of magic she finds, the Sealing Curse, is old, traditional, powerful, and hard to break (you’ve broken such things before, so you can’t say it’s impossible). </p>
<p>It’s also ruthless, and judging by the expression Flint is giving Harry as she cheerfully outlines the workings of the curse, he knows it too. He just didn’t expect Harry to be so inexorable about it.</p>
<p>Honestly, she is more of a Slytherin than Flint is. What was he expecting?</p>
<p>Flint knows that it doesn’t cost him all that much to ensure he won’t talk, especially because he wasn’t planning on spilling the beans anyways, so he acquiesces to Harry’s demands and wrangles out a Vow of Undisclosed Debt, which is…troubling, but manageable. Harry also has some concerns. </p>
<p>“Well what if you asked me to kill my sister, but it turns out I don’t have any sisters?”</p>
<p>And she calls YOU the violent one. That’s where your mind goes, Harry? Killing off imaginary sisters? </p>
<p>Good thing she’s an only child.</p>
<p>… </p>
<p>The battle for some mastery of Occlumency continues, and you find yourself residing in a space filled with the mountain, underneath which a cozy, if utilitarian, Potions Lab resides. A cold wind and rough snow have spawned into existence. Harry has started adding the basic illusions and distractions to protect her mind. </p>
<p>The room that has been built around you is surprisingly flattering, considering how Harry feels about you. The “Space Room”, as Harry has taken to calling it, is her favorite place in her Mindscape. You are also the “sun” of the room, the main feature, and Harry likes to visit you here. You don’t know why it doesn’t occur to her that if she let you out once and a while, she wouldn’t have to stay in her head all the time to interact with and appreciate your presence of life and warmth. </p>
<p>Still, it’s not exactly your goal right now to expose yourself to whatever leaching curse is lurking about, and with all the advancements to her Mindscape, you and Harry might actually have a chance against the Sleeping Sickness. </p>
<p>And her mind might just be her only ally, seeing as Snape is almost certainly in collusion with whoever sent the sickness. </p>
<p>You are proud of Harry for eavesdropping. She needs to break the rules a little more.</p>
<p>Well, maybe not. You retract that statement.</p>
<p>Snape knows who sent it, knows it was constructed. Two marks against him. The only point in his favor is his very apparent disapproval. Still, complacency is not a great defense. Harry is prone to excusing his participation, equivocating to herself the truth of what she’s seeing. You know what you saw. If Snape doesn’t take this girl as his apprentice one day, he’ll regret it. Greatly. </p>
<p>For all his faults, Snape is a man currently trying his best, but he needs help. Desperately. You and Harry find yourselves charged with the responsibility of being the sole brewer for the Hospital Wing in Snape's absence as he embarks on a hopeless quest to find quality Ginseng. </p>
<p>As such, Harry is excused from all classes, and the two of you fall into a physically and magically exhausting routine, which you have affectionately dubbed “Keeping Hogwarts Alive 101”. The fact that this has been entrusted to an eleven year-old with unreliable magic at best (though you’ve decided to be on your best behaviour) speaks volumes of Hogwarts’ desperation. You can’t say you’re too pleased with Albus Dumbledore, either. Yes, he is a major supporting figure of politics that ensures that the wizarding population will not die out in the next two generations, but politics can only go so far. Especially when children are involved. Keeping quiet about this is doing no one favors. </p>
<p>The perpetrator behind the sickness--curse--is still an unsolved mystery with no leads, except that they are in political opposition to Dumbledore, and wish to undermine him.</p>
<p>You don’t claim to be a saint, rather far from that actually, but allowing children to get caught up in things like this is wrong beyond just simple human morality. No, this is starting to infringe on the Laws. If it continues much longer, who knows what entity will be sent to try and fix it. Definitely not Fate, at least. Nobody trusts Fate. Fate doesn’t even trust other versions of itself. </p>
<p>Perhaps Time, then. And isn’t that absolutely terrifying. </p>
<p>You would rather not tangle with Time, so hopefully Harry becomes desperate enough to allow the two of you to actually work towards a real solution rather than just perpetually brewing needed, but ultimately pointless, Potions to uphold the current state of affairs. </p>
<p>Nevertheless, the drain on your energy is satisfying, and you’re pleased to be of some service to Harry. </p>
<p>… </p>
<p>The inciting incident is rather traumatic to Harry, but extraordinarily effective. </p>
<p>Draco Malfoy collapses right in front of her in the middle of the conversation, and Harry has to drag his unresponsive body out into the common room before anyone can help him.</p>
<p>Pansy is not far behind, less than a day afterwards.</p>
<p>Harry is the only remaining First Year. </p>
<p>Harry is alone.</p>
<p>And brewing Potions won’t save the day this time.</p>
<p>Normally, you’d be slightly vindictive in the knowledge that her precious Potions have failed her, but it's more sad and depressing to watch than anything. </p>
<p>Draco is allergic to the Ginseng substitute, Acai berries.</p>
<p>There is absolutely no Ginseng.</p>
<p>Draco might die.</p>
<p>And Harry can’t substitute a substitute. </p>
<p>Even you are at a loss for ideas, but you do know that saving Draco will take more than the highly-ordered, precise magic of Potions. No, this situation calls for creativity, imagination, and wild magic.</p>
<p>And a little bit of Impossibility. </p>
<p>You and Harry find yourselves sitting dejectedly at Draco’s side, Pansy a fallen angel closeby. </p>
<p>Harry’s grief, and your own, you note with surprise, (since when did you allow yourself to get attached to children other than Harry and Archie?) do not distract you from the sticky, dark tendrils of something other that have started to grasp on the edges of Harry’s mind. </p>
<p>It’s the sickness. You’re sure of it. You can already tell it struggles to latch itself onto Harry’s mind, made slippery from her improved Occlumency and lacking more textrous tendrils of magic to grip onto. </p>
<p>Your immediate instinct is to expel it. </p>
<p>You want it OUT. </p>
<p>It DOES NOT belong here. </p>
<p>Harry’s mind, however, is a realm she rules with even more power than the physical world, and you have no power to BURN and INCINERATE that lifeless, single-minded piece of Wrong. Of Other. </p>
<p>Instead, Harry runs for safety of her lab under the mountain, and effectively traps herself in her own mind. </p>
<p>Her wealth of common sense is astounding, really. </p>
<p>And then she decides that saving herself isn’t a priority, but saving Draco Malfoy must come first. </p>
<p>You’re SURE there’s something about Muggles in airplanes putting on some sort of mask before helping other people put theirs on. You can’t help but think the same logic applies here. </p>
<p>For the very first time, Harry turns to you. </p>
<p>Not in fear, or in resignment, but for help. And not just for Potions, no help for herself and her friends.</p>
<p>You know what, fine. You’ll save the spoiled Malfoy Heir. If anything, it should be interesting. </p>
<p>Let’s do this, you say to Harry, and for once, she seems to get the message. </p>
<p>Harry’s avatar moves closer to your presence in the space room, and contemplates. </p>
<p>You are always privy to her thoughts, how could you not be, but most of the time you only examine them closely when it suits you, otherwise they are a constant, largely ignored monologue because while Harry’s thoughts are far from boring, yours are usually more interesting.</p>
<p>Here, though, you pay close attention. </p>
<p>Just as Harry exists both as her physical and her mental self, you too, have two different forms. The first is Harry’s magical core, of which you willingly separated yourself from when you joined with Harry. Doing so means that you share control of this energy with Harry, but it is far more potent because it is connected to a mortal being of this dimension. During the time of your aimless meanderings around the world, you had full control over your own energy, but it held far less effect. The mortals have always had the most command over their own world. That has not changed.</p>
<p>It’s part of the reason you joined with Harry. You have grown tired of being a simple observer. Your potential is wasted on yourself, with the power to change things that matter little to those who care. Really, sacrificing your jurisdiction of your energy was a fair trade to experience the excitement of life once more.</p>
<p>Immortality is boring. Only a fool would disagree. </p>
<p>You have abdicated much of your own power, that is true(for now, at least. You have hopes that Harry will live long enough that the two of you will eventually come to compromise), but it’s never truly separated. No magic is. And, you ARE technically Harry’s core. Magic is confusing like that. As such, you can access Harry’s core insofar as you do not actually use it in her own mind.  That is why she can use it to build her Occlumency defences.</p>
<p>The mind and the core are linked.</p>
<p>You just never exactly thought about the...traveling implications….associated with that. </p>
<p>Harry, running on a ridiculous amount of adrenaline and the unmatched brilliance that follows true hopelessness and desperation, concocts a magical theory out of thin air. You are just beginning to feel truly impressed that she has discovered the mind-core link, before she jumps straight into the thought process of using that bond to TRAVEL INTO HER OWN CORE.</p>
<p>Absolutely.</p>
<p>Brilliant.</p>
<p>Also impossible. </p>
<p>But not for long. </p>
<p>You wish you could claim you observed these proceedings and Harry’s near-maniac excitement with the sort of wise air that a being of your age should really have mastered long ago, but the truth is you are just as maniac and excited as she is. How positively fascinating, to travel along one’s own core, and to influence the physical world with nary a thought, even when trapped in one’s body AND mind??? </p>
<p>There are no spells for this. No enchantments, no rituals, no ridiculously-complicated arithmancy algorithms. No potions.</p>
<p>Only pure, unadulterated magic. </p>
<p>Which you happen to be very good at.</p>
<p>It’s a good thing for Harry that you’re so completely on board with this idea, because it will be extremely challenging to break an Impossibility such as this, even with the two of you working together. The nice thing about magic though, as structured as it has gotten in its recent years, is that it has never lost the fundamental part of belief that is so essential to its success. To believe in magic, to have faith in its ability to defy natural laws of the world, is exactly the foundation it was built on. </p>
<p>Harry believes that this will work. And so it shall.</p>
<p>Harry jumps into you, and the odyssey begins.</p>
<p>She pushes her way down the connection-lines to the magic core, you dragging her along as much as possible. Soon, she makes it. In escaping her mind, she now has both physical control of her magic and a level of awareness of her body. </p>
<p>Her consciousness floats, somewhere between the general location of her core and in the close surrounding area.</p>
<p>You wonder if you have prematurely helped create some form of a wraith.</p>
<p>How marvellous!</p>
<p>After Harry manages to stay outside her mind after being jostled about, as well as staying close enough to Draco to embark on your mission, she establishes a connection with his core in the same manner she had with Snape all but a few weeks ago. </p>
<p>She feels bad about not being able to ask for permission.</p>
<p>Hasn’t anyone told her that there’s no such thing as permission in these sorts of emergencies?</p>
<p>You make contact with Draco’s core and--</p>
<p>OW.</p>
<p>It’s ice. </p>
<p>Because of course it is.</p>
<p>Who else, besides the only person you want to save, would have a core that directly opposes the very nature of your own?</p>
<p>You blame Harry’s luck.</p>
<p>Alas, you won’t allow something as measly as core types to stop you, and weather the discomfort (actually this is more like pain) that accompanies the continued connection. </p>
<p>Harry prepares for entry into Draco’s core, and hopefully his mind, and you belatedly realize with Harry that her avatar’s appearance needs a little bit of remodelling. You’re able to help with the eyes, but little else. Between your attention and energy being largely focused on keeping up the difficult connection with Draco’s core and Harry’s own subconscious reluctance to lose yet another part of her identity, you can only do so much.</p>
<p>Harry makes contact with the stubborn ball of ice. Good thing it’s not water, because you can actually melt the ice. Boiling water so it steams is a little bit more challenging. </p>
<p>You feel that maybe melting through someone’s magical core is breaking some sort of Law, but since you have Harry directing you, it’s not like you're engaging in any inappropriate interference. Nope, this was all Harry’s idea.</p>
<p>The two of you make it through the ice, and fall into the water within. </p>
<p>There’s a whirlpool, and that appears to be the most likely link to Draco’s mind, so Harry swims toward it. It pushes her out. How annoying.</p>
<p>Harry is explaining to the magic how Draco is her friend, as if that means anything to the flustered magic that is so used to having things go its way. You aren’t exactly welcome, but it can’t truly throw the two of you all the way out. </p>
<p>You pretend to roll your non-existent eyes, and channel yours and Harry’s feelings to the icy magic. Protectiveness. Safety. Help. Caring.</p>
<p>The magic relaxes, and Harry wastes no time gallantly jumping into the whirlpool. </p>
<p>… </p>
<p>The first thing you notice is that Draco is deeply unimaginative. There is nothing, NOTHING, except endless blue water and a few lonely icebergs. The boy has conjured himself a single snowball to play with. </p>
<p>He’s been trapped in his own mind for a few days, and what, doesn’t do anything? Expects someone else to come fix things for him?</p>
<p>You are so thankful you found Harry. If you thought the boredom of immortality was bad, this is much, much worse.</p>
<p>Draco is also apparently face-blind (which does not bode well for his future aspirations as a politician). He does not recognize Harry who, exempting the long hair, looks exactly the same as she does at Hogwarts.</p>
<p>Harry tells Draco to simply try blasting the sickness with his magic, which he does clumsily at first but gains proficiency as he continues. </p>
<p>Meanwhile, Harry asks for some of her own magic to help Draco. The effort of keeping up the connection between you and and Draco is incredibly draining to your reserves, but you suppose that things will probably go faster if both Harry and Draco work in tandem to push back the sickness, so you draw from the rolling ball of pure fire and pull it to Harry as quickly as you can.</p>
<p>There’s a bit of delay before the familiar flames light in her hand, but they’re there, and ready to do what you always wanted to do.</p>
<p>Between Draco’s merciless ice and your own incinerating, licking flames, the disease doesn’t stand a chance. </p>
<p>You revel in the feeling of heat and blaze, searing through roiling tendrils of mindless, encroaching mass with delighted relish. You have to work twice as hard to channel yourself through the link between Harry and Draco to keep up with the Malfoy Heir, but you manage it with grace. You have energy to spare. </p>
<p>In all honesty, the battle (if repeatedly throwing yourself at a not-quite-thing that is terrified of pure magic constitutes as a “battle”) is… fun, if only a little tedious. Harry’s having a blast, though, and you can’t remember a time you felt so gloriously tired, so even the basic, slow-going progress is a boon.</p>
<p>All of a sudden, in the midst of another attack, a familiar Potions Masters pops into existence.</p>
<p>Well, he’s far too proud to do anything as plebeian as “popping” but the point stands that he appears abruptly in Draco’s mind, and is looking at Harry as if she does more credit to the Black Madness than Bellatrix Lestrange.</p>
<p>You take it as a compliment. It’s not every day a completely new application of magic is constructed.</p>
<p>Snape is also far too smug at his ability to vanquish the sickness with but a dedicated thought. Seriously, the man is feeling superior to eleven year-olds. There’s something a little wrong with that. Yes, his Occlumency is very accomplished, but you think what you and Harry just did is far more impressive. </p>
<p>Harry hops back to her own mind, which you find yourself unexpectedly relieved about. You are really quite tired. Maintaining a connection like that all the while channeling a decent amount of magic for Harry to use is challenging in a number of ways.</p>
<p>Draco’s whirlpool practically spits you out, obviously vastly displeased that you usurped its position of comfortable superiority. You aren’t quite sure what it has to feel superior about, it's not like any other magics have visited for it to compare to. Maybe your visit reminded it that other magics can be just, if not more, powerful, and it's feeling self conscious. </p>
<p>Ah, the good old Family Magics. Some of them, anyway.</p>
<p>As Harry passes through the core of her magic, you give her what could be considered a playful “magical hug”. It’s difficult, without much of a true physical presence, but Harry laughs and you let her through to her mind. She’s exhausted, you’re exhausted, and you still have a little work to do.</p>
<p>After banishing the rest of the sickness with far more ease than in Draco’s mind, with Snape coming along to speed things up (you and Harry could do it just fine by yourselves, it would only take a little while) you can’t help but be incredibly grateful that it’s going to be Harry, not yourself, attempting to explain what in Fate’s name the two of you just did.</p>
<p>Wizards never like learning they’ve been wrong about something. And to be told from a child, well, Harry’s in for an interesting conversation.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>I hope the core-diving was fascinating from Harry's magic's perspective! It was certainly strange to write about.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0011"><h2>11. Becoming a Law-Abiding Magical Inventor: How To</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Harry thinks Core Diving is an exercise in willpower alone. Her magic knows better. Rigel Black is a Hero, and the first chapter of Hogwarts closes with a thump.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>This took forever, and I generated a lot of magical theory that might not even make sense? Plz don't be afraid to ask questions.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Unfortunately, in the making of new magic, things that were originally blind instinct become a process with rules, regulations, and limitations. Order exerts its will.</p>
<p>Forging a connection with Draco’s magic was incredibly difficult, there is no doubt in that. The reliance on belief, on willpower, and on sheer determination alone had to be extraordinary for such a thing to become possible. However, now that the Impossibility has Broken, you can no longer expect them to get you along.</p>
<p>Sending Harry and yourself to Pansy’s core and mind require a little more conscientious, scientific effort on your part. Not even hours after Draco’s own connection, you can already feel the new, but no less heavy, Laws settling down on yourself and the rest of the world. </p>
<p>Attaching to Pansy’s core, while normally not a problem had you simply done it the same as Snape, requires more maneuverability and magical dexterity, even with Pansy’s more compatible magic. Harry simply thinks she makes a conscious effort and dives in. That’s...not exactly the case anymore. </p>
<p>Some level of permission is now necessary, no longer can you blast your way through people’s cores without their or their magic’s consent. An attempt to force a connection must be made. Unlike how Snape and Harry bound their cores earlier in the year, in which both of them were aware enough to consent, this core connection relies on the consent of the magic alone--a permission that is arguably more onerous to obtain. Magic is not convinced by audible words and flimsy things such as claims to acquaintances and empty promises of assistance. No, those are things by which the mortal realm is ruled. Magic, above all else, is fueled by intent. Seeing as many of the cores you and Harry will undoubtedly be expected to dive into (after the adults manage to accept that they don’t know everything and need help) will likely be Family Magics, made apprehensive and single-mindedly protective after generations of careful cultivation to a wizard’s own line, creating these initial links will require incredible negotiation on your part. </p>
<p>You extend yourself to meet Pansy’s core, inviting her magic with cherished memories of Harry and Pansy braiding hair, exchanging amused looks over Draco’s classic dramatics, and many others. Hers is a curious magic, and inclined to trust the judgement of its witch, so it perks up with interest and extends a cautious line of magic to yours. Vines and flames twist in an unknown dance.</p>
<p>You could sigh in relief at this easy connection. While magic cannot ever truly be sorted into rigid boxes and identifications, being something of its own entirely (and to this you can attest), there is some truth in magical affinities.</p>
<p>Order and Chaos.</p>
<p>Light and Dark.</p>
<p>Elemental.</p>
<p>You yourself are about as chaotic as the magics come, reveling in the freedom and potential for impossibility the wildness offers you. Of course, your dedication to such an extent of chaos leaves you less capable in achieving consistent results of any kind (part of the reason you merged with Harry, so as the unpredictability could be tempered by the mortal laws while retaining its power) and allows you to be far more subject to the whims of the universe and the entities that control it. Ordered magics are protected by the constraints that they put on themselves. </p>
<p>It’s true that Fate’s had it out for Harry from day one, but you cannot claim that her bad luck is entirely her fault. The Universe is truly out to get you. To control you. As it should. Arguably, the best part about subscribing to chaos is disrupting and eluding order. The more ordered something is, the greater potential for it to dissolve into ultimate chaos. It’s a bit of a rush, gives some more feeling to the monotony of immortality. </p>
<p>As for the Light and Dark magics, well, they are more shaped by the beliefs and morals of whatever mortal society is in existence than any inherent quality of magic alone. That is why the more ordered a magic, the more or less Light or Dark the magic becomes, since it is a direct result of how closely one wishes to adhere to a certain archetype of magic. Many would claim that the Darkest magic is the most untempered and wild, and that is not true. The more Light or Dark a witch or wizard becomes, the more they conform to a certain standard and caliber of magic, and thus the more ordered it becomes out of simple expectation of its produced results. Therefore, it is not as simple to say that light magic is ordered, and dark is wild, or even the opposite. The wildest magics are the ones most neutral, and order only increases on either extension of that spectrum. Of course, one COULD believe that Dark magic is supposed to be wild so strongly enough that it truly does become it, but that takes a certain, special type of person. Or, throwing tact to the wind, a madman. Or someone who is simply very determined. You can’t think of ANYONE who would fit any of those descriptions. </p>
<p>The last identifier of magic that can be explained with any sort of consistency is, of course, it’s elemental affinity. Depending on the magic and its sentience, the elemental emergence is either determined by the magic itself, in which case it oftens shapes the personality of the wizard to some extent, or the magic lacks enough sentience or ambition to choose and allows itself to be shaped by the wizard themself. Elemental affinities, above light and dark and ordered and chaotic, are what matters most when it comes to Core Diving. In a sense, it is a physical manifestation of a combination of the wizard’s and magic’s personality. While Harry gets along well enough with Draco, his magic does not get along with you, and so the two of you clash in a flurry of fire and ice. </p>
<p>Which makes Family Magics such a FASCINATING conundrum, and Pansy’s magic even more so.</p>
<p>Family Magics are magics that have been aggressively cultivated for generations, some spanning in the thousands of years. Typically, this is wizardkind’s own doing, in which magic has, in a rough sense, been “bred” to pass down certain magical qualities and attributes, like family gifts and elemental affinities. As such, the magic is confined to only certain expressions of itself, and is very difficult to break. HOWEVER, because this magic has been trained to obey the whims of witches and wizards, it is entirely possible for a wizard of a particularly strong personality to impose enough will on its magic that it will, in fact, change entirely. </p>
<p>You’ve never had the pleasure of coming into close contact with Parkinson Family Magic (or luck, the winds and trees have whispered, flickering images of fields of lifeless, dried flowers and cut gemstones that are too cold) so you certainly never expected the surprise of Pansy’s magic, though you probably should have. </p>
<p>You and Harry travel along the magical connections forged by a tenuous trust, and you make your way to the core with surprising speed. No unyielding walls to Pansy’s core. You wonder, seeing as how the connection between your presence in Harry’s core and your presence in your mind are closer than you thought, if the way magical cores manifest is in some way impacted by a wizard’s mentality? Could it be that Draco’s own stiff, inflexible core was simply a representation of his close-mindedness? </p>
<p>You will need to get to know him better, observe him when he’s not interacting with Harry. Unfortunate crushes on oblivious witches tend to skew results. </p>
<p>Pansy’s magic is the very essence of unicorns themselves, or at least something quite close to it. Unlike Draco’s rigid, impenetrable sphere of blue ice with still waters, Pansy’s has a certain fresh life to it that is...surprisingly wild, for a Pureblood. As a girl who so outwardly conforms to societal expectation, the natural, twisting vines that surround the unique, swirling pool of otherworldly silver speak of someone who has a much deeper connection to the essence of nature, and the wildness that comes with it.</p>
<p>But hers is a gentle wildness, not at all similar to the raging inferno of yourself. The slowly creeping vines, moving at such a pace that many might not notice they are moving at all, hint at an exceptional proficiency at playing the long game, where unassuming vines gradually spread and climb the highest trees, catching many of the tallest or unluckiest unaware and choking them out of life with each deliberate coil. Their potential for slow but sure devastation is mitigated by the curious wealth of unicorn blood, which seeps into the soft soil and fills everything with an unusual innocence and will to do good. </p>
<p>If anything, it's much more fascinating and nuanced than Draco’s compact, slightly-sentient iceball. You can forgive the unicorn blood. Pansy has the potential for something unexpected, and as long as she doesn’t decide to conjure up any of those self-absorbed, flighty creatures to keep her mind company, you can work with such an obvious error in taste. </p>
<p>You judge Pansy’s magic to still be Darker, though far more Neutral than you were anticipating. Unfortunately, you have less time to observe than you had wished. Pansy takes Harry tumbling into her mindscape like some sort of accidental hero in a graceful stride, as if people went around visiting each other in their heads no differently than your everyday social call. </p>
<p>Harry declares that she’ll be setting fire to Pansy’s deceptively-peaceful domain, with naught but the assurance of “don’t worry, I promise it’ll be fine”. Personally, you think Harry could benefit from a few classes in sensitivity and just general awareness, wielding around a ball of bright, orange flames with every intention of starting her self-imposed task isn’t exactly the image of a benevolent savior. </p>
<p>But Pansy simply allows herself a slow, startled blink, and acquises to Harry’s pronouncement with fluid agreement. You aren’t sure whether Pansy actually trusts Harry this much, or if she has simply determined that things will likely work out better for her if she doesn’t resist. Better to allow the fire-wielding colonizer to do what they will than attempt to argue with them and burn down the whole town. </p>
<p>Harry really needs some sort of mental mirror so she can see just how she appears to other people sometimes. It’s mildly terrifying. And, coming from you, it’s no small thing.</p>
<p>Snape shows up once more to play Unnecessary-But-Still-Convenient-Hero-Number-Two, and you take immense pleasure in sauntering your way back through Pansy’s core, who is even more amenable to your presence after your help in expelling the sickness, so the whole effect is achieved with even more poise and effortlessness than was actually necessary. </p>
<p>Harry re-enters the physical world, and is promptly presented with a Life-Debt from a disgruntled Malfoy family that isn’t sure what to do with itself. Falling back on ancient magical traditions hasn’t failed an Old Pureblood family yet (publicly, at least), so that is what they do. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>You and Harry broke and remade the Laws of the Universe for this boy, so a Life Debt is certainly warranted, if slightly uncomfortable to have that miniscule, but ever-present, thread of magic that binds you to Malfoy Family Magic. Looking on the bright side, you may be able to psychologically and magically analyze Draco to a more successful extent. If only the same could be said of Pansy. </p>
<p>… </p>
<p>You regard the following few weeks with an amusement that Harry probably wouldn't appreciate if she were privy to your thoughts (which is a privilege she would be afforded IF she actually worked with you, not against you). She is truly a hero. People stare and whisper as she passes by in the halls. Not only is the attention annoying in itself, but it’s not even about POTIONS. How awful. Imagine being good at more than one thing. Who would want that?</p>
<p>Harry’s patience is pushed to the limits as the two of you continue to Core Dive, and in this, you can sympathize. Harry remains unaware of the amount of negotiation that takes place amidst the travelling from her core to others. For Harry, time distorts in a curious manner as you bicker with other magics to allow you passage. Most of the First Years’ magic is convinced, similar to Pansy’s, by the trust that the witch or wizard has placed in “Rigel”. Neville’s own magic is even eager to see you, and you are thrilled to find that you can communicate with it. Its level of sentience is a nice surprise among the generally more ordered magics of the rest of the students. </p>
<p>The other magics, however, are even more irritating than unicorns. While none of the elemental affinities are quite so opposed to yours as Draco’s was, almost all of the magics are initially unwilling and completely adverse to allow you and Harry entry. Often you find yourself negotiating a dangerous contract with the other magic that would have...unpleasant consequences for you, had Harry not done exactly what you told the magic you would do.</p>
<p>Luckily, none of the magics are as old or as well traveled as yourself, so the ones that still vehemently refuse entry are shown...interesting...images of some truly awful things that you have seen happen to magic in your existence. Magic being consumed by big, lightless, empty holes in space, its existence snuffing out like a weak candle. Magic being slowly ripped apart by a plant that is also not a plant, a being that has all the time in the world to shred and taste...slowly. Image after scene of things that, in some way, resemble the dark, tentacled mass that surrounds their wizard’s mind. </p>
<p>The sickness is about as dangerous as a lazy guinea pig that ate too many pellets. But the tiniest possibility that maybe it ISN’T is enough to allow Harry and you into the child’s mind, the other magic panicked enough that it is done with startling speed.  </p>
<p>From there, Harry gets an intimate taste of what it’s like to be an actual Healer. The children are scared. The children are helpless. The children are distrustful. Ignorant of what is happening to them. Contemptuous of being told what to do by a First Year. Reluctant to leave their Mindscape, in one girl’s case (and, to be fair, she had constructed a very impressive replica of the Great Wall of China.) </p>
<p>In other words, Harry exercises a patience that she never had to before, and only succeeds because her strong morals constantly remind her that she is the only person who can do this. Otherwise, you know for a fact that she would have stalked out of the Hospital Wing after her third patient and gone to brew Potions for an innumerable amount of time while she questioned her cousin’s desire to willingly deal with people. </p>
<p>As much as Harry is pretending what she did was a mere act of friendship, you know that what happened here at Hogwarts will not soon be forgotten. Or ever, depending on who writes the history books. If a Malfoy ever decides to go against the grain and pledge themselves to a life of isolation and study (unlikely, but stranger things have happened), you have no doubt that Rigel Black will be one of history’s true heroes, and as famous as Merlin himself.</p>
<p>But you can’t help but think that “Harry Potter” has a much better ring to it.</p>
<p>END OF YEAR ONE</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>I hope y'all enjoyed! I sure did. Fun fact, this is going to continue into year 2! Anyone want to give me any ideas about what they would like Leo's magic to look like?? I'm taking suggestions. ;)</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0012"><h2>12. Oobleck actually is magic</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Shaped imbuing is based on more Muggle science than anyone previously thought. Just don't tell the Purebloods. Harry's magic reunites with a long list friend.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Welcome to year 2 everyone, or at least the summer! I want to take a moment to thank everyone for all their comments throughout the story. You all have given me so much motivation.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It’s summer, and you are incredibly bored.</p><p>Which is why you only put up a token protest, to yourself, about Harry venturing down Knockturn Alley to sell her Potions. </p><p>Yes, you’ve started talking to yourself. It’s not as though you haven’t talked to yourself before. In the long decades following a death you are still unsure about, you existed as something that was and wasn’t, which meant that only you could decide what you wanted to be. There was a lot of self-discussion then. You also happened to be very mad. You probably were approaching Fate-levels of madness, which is never good, before you decided to Become something.</p><p>That’s what some do in Limbo. Become, or Fade. But to exist in Limbo for extended periods of time isn’t healthy for any consciousness. </p><p>Existing with Harry during summer is a little too close to Limbo and the accompanying madness for comfort, so Harry’s characteristic decision to do something stupid has a low bar to pass for your approval. Harry isn’t aware she has your approval, but she certainly would be aware if she didn’t. </p><p>Besides, it is easy to rapidly grow weary Diagon Alley, with all its picture-perfect storefronts, too-clean stones, and carefully curated sense of stereotypical witchy disorder. Diagon Alley is the furthest thing from chaotic. Not only are the stones and wards of the place imbued with insane amounts of ordered magic to keep the place from collapsing in on itself, but the culture of the place is carefully manicured to a specific kind of witch or wizard. Average, decently wealthy, and wholly comfortable in their place in life. </p><p>So, technically, there’s nothing wrong with Diagon, but it’s not exactly your scene. </p><p>Obviously, as soon as Harry ventures into the forbidden, darkened streets (you smell crafty spellwork, there’s no way the entrance is so abruptly dark) you are on high alert. Just because the chaotic environment of Knockturn is more suited to your tastes, it is not any less dangerous. Harry is a pretty, young child. All alone. You can taste the interest, and it tastes foul.</p><p>Among your anxious magical sensing, sent out in pulses far smaller in a radius than you would like (Harry is as controlling as ever, even in the relaxed climate of her home) you start to sense the purer, more innocent magic that lies beneath the obvious veneer of grime and stained magic. Children, their little lights easily overlooked, flit about the thin crowds, moving in ignored jostles and quick, careful apologies as they bleed any and all unsuspecting shoppers out of anything of value. </p><p>Harry, bless her, is just as oblivious. Alas, Harry has never quite dressed like the perfect Pureblood Heiress, nor does she have a bearing that reeks of wealth and status, so the children look at her with confusion… and caution. Caution, because while Harry doesn’t walk like her Pureblooded peers, there’s an intrinsic sense of self-assurance and confidence that is unusual for someone her age. These children are magically-sensitive to boot, and even your small pulses leave a taste of danger on their tongues. </p><p>Harry is left alone, but watched by dozens of eyes. </p><p>The child makes her way to some backwater store, something to do with serpents, but your attention is elsewhere. Wild magic is closing in on you, fast and intentional. Someone around here has obviously been informed of Harry’s unusual appearance in the Alleys, and come to investigate.</p><p>You feel that you should be worried, but there’s something about this magic, something that is so familiar about it, that you can’t help but think that you recognize it. As it gets closer, you channel all your attention into extending a piece of yourself to attempt to touch this magic.</p><p>Upon contact, there’s a flash of the sea, wet salt, and it’s abruptly gone.</p><p>You could grin. You would know this watery facade anywhere.</p><p>Emboldened, you reach out again, this contact made exponentially easier by the other magic’s own reciprocated interest. This time, you perceive an extensive cave system, disappearing and reappearing as the tides change. The walls made of hard, bizarre granite, their freckled, rough appearance wrought with flecks of small crystals. The rock is smooth and weathered to those familiar with it, but just as likely to catch those unaware with unforgivingly sharp shards and abrupt slides into darkness. </p><p>Beyond the physical appearance, the granite hums with a unique magic, not as old as you, but close. It is the edge of a knife, the heady, precarious balance when walking across it. It is the warmth of a bonfire without any flames, just a steady, welcoming presence. It is a strength capable of withstanding earthquakes, a force tempered to become soft and sharp in all the right places. It is the thrill of excitement with the not-unpleasant weight of responsibility, a King both resigned and determined to serve amongst the unassuming, treacherous shadows. </p><p>It’s...</p><p>Home. </p><p>During your assessment, you allowed the other magic to do the same scan of you. You worry that you may be so changed, so chained by Harry’s will that you will be unrecognizable to a friend you had long thought lost to the unreliable streams of time. However, as soon as you come back to yourself, you are assaulted with a bright joy, a pressing happiness, relief strong enough even Atlas himself wouldn’t feel it if given the opportunity to set down the sky. </p><p>You wonder which witch or wizard will be with the magic now. If anything, they are anything but average. And much more in tune with their magic than Harry is, if the increasing velocity of the magic toward your location is anything to go off of.</p><p>You have no doubt that yours and Harry’s new magical “trick” (as if the word trick does the ability any justice) of Core Diving would work exceedingly well with this magic. Your friend would pick it up easily, unlike Archie. When Harry had tried to show him how to Core Dive, you’d been forced to reject his entry. His magic is not sentient enough to make the connection on its own, and neither does he have the control or awareness of his magic to make up for it. While no harm would come to him whilst among yourself and Harry’s Mindscape, you refuse to let him form bad habits, deadly habits at that, if he tries this with other magics. Until the boy has a better understanding of his magic, or allows his magic enough sentience to compensate, you will not teach Core Diving to him. </p><p>But it does not do to dwell on that when presented with a long-lost, but never forgotten, friend. </p><p>Harry, unsurprisingly, has noticed exactly none of this exchange, naturally too caught up in Potions to give any attention to the rest of the world. She leaves before the other magic can reach you.</p><p>That is fine. You can be patient. Harry is clearly coming back to this place, holding crates of packed bottles awkwardly in her arms. Your friend will certainly seek you out upon your return. </p><p>There are few things you can trust in this world, but your resurfaced friend is unquestionably one of them. </p><p>… </p><p>You suppose it’s unfair to claim that Harry has done entirely nothing this summer. Indeed, as the innocuous cauldron of Weightless Draught sits before you, swirling with incomplete magic, you can’t say you expected Harry to attempt to break another Impossibility so soon.</p><p>Unlike Core Diving, this Impossibility is easier to break because it is less of a thing that shouldn’t happen, and more of a thing that people just haven’t thought of before. That doesn’t mean you’re any less excited. No, if anything, you’re even more thrilled, because it relates to POTIONS, which means that Harry will actually use it, unlike Core Diving which currently is only really useful in freak events and something that many would argue goes beyond intrusive medical procedures.</p><p>The “it” that you refer to does not actually have a name yet, but involves the imbuing of spell-shaped magic into Potions themselves. When you and Harry first attempted this, she asked you to simply, in a sense, “hold still”, in the shape of the spell, and so you did. </p><p>Magic, as a rule, is always moving. Sure, it can be trapped in objects, places, and potions easily enough, but the magic still moves within the restricted space, shifting about in cycles or sequences dependent on the thing it was trapped in. </p><p>When you held still, you casually broke that Law, and the universe decided it there wasn’t really enough justification for you to be able to do that, so the magic only held in the Potion for a few precarious moments before bursting in a shower of glass and liquid. </p><p>You and Harry are both undeterred. Harry, because it’s Potions (enough said), and you because you like explosions. </p><p>You’re glad that, as ordered as the Potter household magic is, James is so chaotic in terms of personality and lifestyle that the small explosions are only questioned once at dinner, and soon disregarded after a masterfully relaxed explanation from Harry, added with just a touch of flip that both her parents chalk it up to normal teen activity. </p><p>Slytherin has taught her well. </p><p>The next attempt is nearly as unsuccessful. Harry takes inspiration from a few Muggle physics books from Lily, and starts to assign magic a state of matter. Magic is sometimes matter, and sometimes not, but can be most closely related to gas. </p><p>Gas has the most energy, by simple explanation that it has the most kinetic energy, which brings you back to the movement problem. Gas in a potion, no wonder there’s such an explosive quality. The two of you attempt to force yourself into a solid form of the spell to reduce the amount of energy being loosed into the potion, and while you are able to make your way into the Potion and STAY without explosion, there’s another problem.</p><p>The magic is too….stiff, unable to mix with ambient magics of the ingredients of the potion. Instead, it cycles within itself. The lack of blending means that the ingredients don’t have enough magical energy to bond together, and neither can they mix with the spell itself. Instead, you’re left with an unfinished Potion with a self-sufficient spell inside it. </p><p>Harry and you determine that you somehow need to introduce the spell to the Potion in a way that allows the magic to mix with the ingredients and the potion as a whole….but not too much. </p><p>Which brings you and Harry to the unconventional discovery and replication of magical oobleck. </p><p>You are just as interested in the discovery of oobleck as Harry, having never come across it before. It is neither a solid nor a liquid, but rather changes depending on how much pressure, or force, is applied to it. </p><p>In other words….if you and Harry can somehow apply it to magic, so that the magic is able to imbue the Potion with enough energy so that the ingredients bind and the Potion becomes magically-satisfied, all while maintaining the original shape of the spell… </p><p>Harry decides it’s best to start from the basics, and enlists the help of Archie in making the original, Muggle oobleck right in the middle of the Potter kitchen. Her cousin is all too willing to oblige. </p><p>Seeing as Lily is a prolific baker, the kitchen is stocked in all manner of baking resources, cornstarch being one of the necessities. Harry carefully measures out the cornstarch to water ratio with all the precision of a master Potioneer. Archie offers effective moral support, ready whenever to indulge in the experience of “the funky Muggle liquid”. </p><p>What follows is an impromptu slapping contest where Harry and Archie take turns seeing who can hit the substance hardest, which quickly evolves into an experiment in seeing whether or not the same slapping effect can be achieved if the oobleck is thrown at a human face fast enough. </p><p>Sirius walks in, for all intents and purposes ready to steal Lily’s sugar, if the conspicuous brown bag and scoop are anything to go off of. Seeing the two children giggling like lunatics and covered in enough milky white substance to pass as animated Roman statues, his face arranges into an interesting expression before he turns on his heel and beats a hasty retreat, muttering something about “sugar contamination” and “Lily’s problem”. </p><p>After Harry feels suitably familiar in the physical sense with the substance, the two of you do magical scans to see if you can imitate the effect. Something that translates over well from Muggle science to magical experimentation is the idea and workings of pressure. </p><p>The reason some wizards and witches are able to sense magic and the auras of other witches and wizards is due to their sensitivity to the pressure of magic. Powerful wizards have more dense magic, magic that is more easy to physically sense, making any ambient pressure of other magics much more noticeably thrown off and repelled. That is why, historically, wizards like Grindelwald and Dumbledore have been described as having a “heavy” magical presence, if they choose to loosen their magical control.</p><p>If you and Harry can calculate the amount of necessary magical energy to put into the spell, so that it will only combine with the Potion JUST ENOUGH that it is suitably integrated and attached without losing its shape, you’ll be golden. </p><p>It takes several, several attempts for you and Harry to get in-sync enough that she can control just how much magic to release into the spell. You don’t even mind listening to her every command; you can understand the importance of consistency here. The spell is overcharged to allow for enough magic to bleed off the spell to combine the potion, the weak ingredients consuming energy with gusto. After that happens, you have ensured that the magical pressure from the increased magic of potion as a whole will be exerting itself enough that the viscosity of the spell will climb to a density that allows the spell’s system of energy to invert in itself with the remaining magic. Thus, the spell remains both connected and separate to the Potion. </p><p>It takes forever to measure just how much magic Harry and you need to put in the spell to give it the oobleck quality, and even after you achieve it, you know that the effects of the spell in the Potion will be significantly reduced. Until you find optimum spell-magic to potion-magic ratios, this will always be the case.</p><p>But for now, the Potion is stable and somewhat effective. You feel the hum as the Universe and it’s ever-present Laws judge the magical oobleck, and their tingle of approval as they pass. </p><p>Harry’s ambition for all this, of course, is to gift the Potion to Draco after an offhand comment about him wishing to fly. As if he didn’t already have the best brooms money could buy and enough quidditch training to not immediately kill himself in the air. </p><p>You’ve resigned yourself to the fact that Draco Malfoy, one of the most uncreative and traditional children you know, is the source of inspiration for the newest and most innovative magic on the market. </p><p>Oobleck Magic, while not so much an Impossibility as Core Diving, was far more technically challenging and intensive, not to mention far less frustrating than negotiating with stubborn magics, and you revel in the feeling of satisfaction rather than relief. The Modified Weightless Draught may be small and irrelevant now, but the science behind it will quickly make its way into the Potions community. This, you know.</p><p>To quote the Americans, and their love for anything dramatic… </p><p>“That’s one small step for a witch, one giant leap for wizardkind.” </p><p>And with Harry, you can honestly say these are small steps. There is no way this girl peaks at twelve years old.</p><p>… </p><p>Harry returns shortly to the Lower Alleys, burdened with the weight of freshly-filled bottles of Potions, packed with loving care in their individual slots and labeled with her best handwriting. She makes her way to the Serpent’s Storeroom, and astounds yet another person with her uncanny ability to make a truly incredible amount of quality Potions within mere hours and remain completely and genuinely blasé about it. </p><p>Brewing for the Sleeping Sickness has clearly desensitized her already-irrational standards of Potions and what constitutes as a reasonable process for their creation. </p><p>Of course, you think with no small amount of smugness, her sheer ability to mass produce Potions like she’s some sort of Muggle factory relies entirely on your own strength. </p><p>Walking outside again, you realize that the familiar, wild magic is back, and there is no way Harry will be able to miss them this time. Ambitiously carrying three crates whilst navigating through the precariously uneven streets of Knockturn Alley, she’s not going anywhere very quickly.</p><p>However, the witch or wizard bound to the magic is clearly hesitant, unsure when to approach Harry and how to go about it without sending the completely wrong impression. You are just beginning to reach out to the magic, ready to not-so-gently coax its wizard into action, your tendrils beginning to make the barest touch of contact….</p><p>Harry is yanked seven ways to Sunday by a man who looks like he could have come through a sewer and has a smell that confirms it. </p><p>You curse your inattentiveness. No matter how excited you may have been to meet the other magic, you should have not dropped your guard in the slightest in Knockturn. </p><p>You attempt to rally, but Harry has frozen your ability for action. Images of Lee Jordan and rippling ropes flash in the background of her mind, and she is caught trying to judge whether or not the man is more dangerous, or yourself.</p><p>Foolish girl. When have you ever turned against her? </p><p>Harry engages in physical combat instead, her lackluster attempts to fight only marginally effective due to the man’s clearly inebriated state. Her resistance is still painfully feeble, and you are ready to do something highly illegal in both the mortal and other planes of existence, when a fist tinged with grainy stone and an uncompromising weight crashes over your shoulder and into the face of Harry’s attacker, throwing him back with far more force than any purely-physical punch could have achieved. </p><p>You could grin. Harry’s knight in shadowed armor has made an appearance. It seems that your coalescing, bubbling energy mere seconds away from exploding was enough to startle the wizard into action.   </p><p>The boy--almost man--holds himself (and Harry, for that matter, who collapsed like Draco Malfoy suffering from a particularly nasty shock of a no-strawberry-tarts-at-lunch-crisis) with utter confidence. You can feel in the way that he holds Harry and consequently surrounds you that he and his magic are in an enviable position of harmony. His magic sings through his veins, protection and attack main priority in its hard, ringing message. It gives you a smug, amused wave of fondness as it flows over Harry, checking her for injury, and for the first time in, well, a VERY long time, you feel the unfamiliar creepings of embarrassment taking root, latching on with annoying effectiveness. </p><p>Since when have you been in a position that needs saving? Your friend is never going to let you forget this. </p><p>The man is neutralized with brutal, concise efficiency. The boy has the audacity, or perhaps it would be more accurate to say skill, to look mildly bored by the whole affair. </p><p>His name is Leo, and Harry is looking at him with the exact same amount of fascination that he is looking at her with, and you are fully secure in your hypothesis that this is going to be an interesting, highly-unconventional friendship.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>If you're wondering where the oobleck idea came from, I only have one thing to say to you: me too.</p>
        </blockquote><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Hello! New fic writer here. Avid fan of murkybluematter's Rigel Black Chronicles. Thanks to all the inspiration from the discord. I wonder how fast someone will find this (it seems we are all equally obsessive with fic finding). If people like this, I'm sure I can fish around in my head for ideas of some kind of continuation.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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